For any filmmaker who feels discouraged by Hollywood\u2019s big named actors, technically complicated plots, or thorough use of gunfights and explosions, please see Thomas Vinterberg\u2019s Dogme 95 film, The Celebration, for no other films proves the incredible power of filmmaking. Let alone digital filmmaking. <\/p>\n
The well respected, Helge, is celebrating his 60th birthday at his beautiful mansion (a family-ran hotel) in the exclusive, countryside of Denmark. His loyal wife, Elsa, and other family guest and friends accompany him. Helge\u2019s oldest son Christian, his hot-tempered little brother, Michael, and younger sister, Helene, are gathered together for the first time after the funeral of Christian\u2019s twin sister who committed suicide at one of the rooms in the mansion. At dinnertime, Christian makes shocking accusations about his father\u2019s past, family secrets resurface and are confronted for the very first time in a tumultuous 24-hour period at the Helge household. <\/p>\n
Powerful performances and powerful storytelling are what makes the film so innovative. Innovative in the sense that the film was made only with a budget of 1.3 million dollars and in the middle of Hollywood\u2019s CGI heydays. Created by The Celebration\u2019s director, Peter Vinterberg, and Lars Von Trier, an acclaim film director in Denmark, Dogme 95 films were born using codes that inhibit creative filmmaking (google \u201cDogme 95\u201d and \u201cThe Vow of Chastity\u201d). The Celebration was the first of these Dogme 95 films. It won the grand prize at Cannes in 1998. <\/p>\n
Using hand held, digital cameras, The Celebration has bad lighting, bad sound, but ultimately is brilliant. How can a film so bad, be so damn good? The Celebration illustrates how drama can be captured not by how much CGI or flashy camera movements a film has (are you listening Michael Bay? Steven Spielberg? George Lucas) but by how good a story, performance, and film technique the film acquires. Even then, there is still some aesthetically beautiful shots\/scenes and innovated use of how digital film can look and make the audience feels. In these ways, The Celebration is a perfect film. Watch it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For any filmmaker who feels discouraged by Hollywood\u2019s big named actors, technically complicated plots, or thorough use of gunfights and explosions, please see Thomas Vinterberg\u2019s Dogme 95 film, The Celebration, for no other films proves the incredible power of filmmaking. Let alone digital filmmaking. The well respected, Helge, is celebrating his 60th birthday at his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}