Festen

This 10th anniversary edition DVD is a tidy, well-produced package rich in anecdotes and insights into Dogme 95 and the making of Festen.

In three featurettes, Thomas Vinterberg, cast and crew recount their experiences of a memorable, somewhat chaotic shoot. The thing that stands out initially is the conviction of almost everyone involved, before they began shooting, that the project would be an unmitigated failure. It seems that they entered into the film with a kind of joyful pessimism: photography director Anthony Dod Mantle confesses he thought to himself "Are we making a masterpiece or a mess?". But any doubts seem to have been dispelled by excitement about the film and the happy knowledge that "we were going to have a summer of fun in some manor house in Roskilde".

For anyone interested to know how applying the rules of Dogme shaped the film, there is plenty of detail about the direction and shooting of Festen. Amusingly, Vinterberg is forced to sheepishly admit that on a couple of occasions, he broke the rules which he himself had set out. For instance, all actors were supposed to supply their own costume, but they had to pay for a tuxedo for Ulrich Thomsen (Christian) because he didn't own one. In one scene, the camera leaves the hand of cinematographer Dod Mantle, and is tied to a pole to create a swooping shot that comes down from the ceiling of the room (in Dogme the camera must always be hand-held). Of course the only one to try to deny that the rules were broken is the PR man. "Can you cheat in filmmaking? Maybe rules were drawn up which were evaded here and there...", he wriggles. Spoken like a true politician.

The actors only have positive things to say about working within the precepts of Dogme, citing more sustained shoots that allowed them to build up a rhythm (as opposed to a big budget set where you have to stop every five minutes for light adjustments), and increased responsibility. In Dogme it is up to the cast to provide their own costumes and keep track of continuity, for example; there were also plenty of opportunities for improvisation.

All in all an informative, witty and engaging complement to the main feature, although to cater for fans of Dogme and the more technically-minded, more thorough coverage of the photography and filming techniques (perhaps through a commentary track) would have been a welcome addition.