Danish film with English subtitles. Set in late 1990's. Family and friends return to the family run hotel for the wealthy patriarch's 60th birthday party. Over the birthday dinner, the eldest son, like a calm and cool assassin, shocks the audience with a toast to his Father with the darkest of possible revelations. His Father and Mother make attempts to discredit him. Rather than leaving it at that, he brings more, and then more - - taking his painful revenge and leaving everyone numb. Accusations get traded back and forth. Dysfunctional family secrets fly out in the open. The film is a tense, emotionally tragic journey that eventually finds a glimmer of peace in its conclusion.

Has all the elements of a great film. Should be required viewing for family therapists and therapists-in-training; this is a great depiction of a family system in action. Every family member has been (or will be) irrevocably changed by the surfacing of this family "secret." The private and public ways individuals in a family collude to maintain system stasis become obvious. A great artistic achievement, The Celebration happens to serve as a great teaching tool as well.

Could be quite difficult for children; parental supervision/judgment advised.

This is a great film, but it's because of its great acting, writing, and subject matter, not because it was one of the first "Dogma '95" films. Lars von Trier started the Dogma movement in order to get back to "real cinema". As much as I admire Von Trier, this was a boneheaded move, as it forces undue restrictions on filmmakers. There were only a handful of films that were released under this moniker. Von Trier's The Idiots (the only film of his that was approved under Dogma rules), Harmony Korine's julien donkey-boy (the most artistic of the bunch, and one that bent the Dogma rules a bit), and this film were the only 3, as far as I know. This one is the most intense, as it is a party of a 60 year old man who is a financially successful businessman, but who also was a monster who molested his own children. The film has sometimes been billed as a dark comedy, and there are a few moments where there is humour, but overall the film is very brooding, depressing, sad, and angry. I think it was just portrayed as a "comedy" in this country because over the last decade or so everything we see has to be funny and light. Heaven forbid we take anything seriously.

I saw this in a theater. The digitial video detracted considerably from my enjoyment. It wasn't shot on high definition, but the cheaper digital video, and when blown up to 35mm, it looked like garbage. But on DVD, it looks better, and you won't get so distracted from having to strain your eyes to see what's going on. This is a very good film, powerful, disturbing, and sad. Ignore the "dogma" politics of it and just enjoy it.

If you haven't ever seen a Dogma film, watch this one first, but I am told that you might not like the rest; This is arguably the best.

One quickly forgets about the camera work or thoughts of video vs. film because the story is so compeling. It's back to the basics of good filmmaking with the twist of handheld DV photography done with great skill.