The Celebration

a barage of emotional, sexual and physical assault.
everyone is trying to out play eachother but as the battlefield runs out, it becomes clear who's winning.

the celebration directed by thomas vinderberg is digital film making at its absolute peak, a film thats about the deep secrets, denial and truth hidden away by family. more so, the film excplicitly makes clear that while the father is in this story the most despicable one here, the film isn't cowardly enough to make a lot of the other members pieces of shit. it also clearly displays how parental figures use powerplays as a method to shut their offsprings off which is to use parts of your childhood to make people decisions in the head so that you'll be seen as 1 individual thing and nothing else.

micheal is in the first stages to cheat on his wife, he beats woman and he to is part of the collective family members to shut christian up but once that masterful scene of helene reading that letter, the tables change. its not enough anymore to tell childhood stories to shut disccusion down.

"your killing me" i quote from the father, is a clear reach into the entitlement of the nature of family. the father tries to cut into the emotions of his children, but it doesn't work anymore. parental figure and by extension, cousins, aunts and uncles expect to get a moral high ground from you because they are family which, we do need to have real future discussions about.

what makes the performances all great is that you can see from facial expression to facial expression that there is always a hint of hatred underneath the surface. the mother's speech tries to be complimentary but obviously is just a ploy to make fun of her children.
once we enter this huge castle like building, we rarely leave and even when we do, its never far enough to feel like there is a path of escapism which is complimented by the digital film making present.
digital film making as a concept, as a culture is something cinephiles see as lesser and not as good as shooting on film, while with parts i do agree, we need to go back to using early digital camera's again because the cinematography in the celebration is something to be studied as its beautifull and its lighting and shadows.
the digital antidote may lie in handycams. resolution is overrated.
the camera is never still for more then 10 seconds and even when it is still, the images are sometimes bulged or distorted. the film's tension is thick because of the cinematography, its thick because of the performances and it is thick because the style of film making.

an all timer.

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The Celebration1998

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