THE CELEBRATION (FESTEN) (73)

Directed by: Thomas Vinterberg

Starring: Ulrich Thomsen, Henning Moritzen, Thomas Bo Larsen

The Pitch: Unsavoury family secrets come to light during a wealthy patriarch's 60th-birthday celebration.

Theo Sez: Probably works (even) better when you already know the plot, if only because it's so unlike what you might expect. The concept of skeletons in family closets disrupting the veneer of bourgeois complacency sounds like warmed-over Arthur Miller - especially with the inevitable inverse snobbery that contrasts arrogant rich masters with salt-of-the-earth kitchen staff - but this is closer to Bunuel in EXTERMINATING ANGEL mode, a film where truth and denial co-exist to surreal effect : accusations of child abuse against their host only faze the celebrants for a few moments, before 'normality' re-asserts itself (though the film is canny enough to know that politeness can be a sheathed weapon in this well-bred world). It's loose and messy, Vinterberg trying out flashy, atmospheric things more or less for the hell of it (an extended bit of cross-cutting seems to have no purpose other than to build tension and release it, rather like the tick-tock montage in DELICATESSEN), veering from dreamlike intensity to outright farce (Christian physically removed every time he opens his mouth, then bursting in again just as everybody's settling down), all of which contributes to a taut, suspended, non-judgmental quality : it's a film where the forces of truth and hypocrisy seem equally matched - you get the feeling that anything can happen. Remarkable impromptu-party sequence near the end, sensed rather than seen ; terrific, funny-monstrous performance by Larsen ; gloriously loopy conga-line scene, perfectly-weighted final gag.