more on Celebration

As you may know, the director of "The Celebration" co-created Dogme 95 with Lars von Trier who directed Melancholia.

I actually saw 'The Celebration' when it came out and was already aware of Dogme 95. I was very serious about film in those days and interested in Lars von Trier after  his "Breaking the Waves" film, starring Emily Watson.  Although "Breaking the Waves' predates Dogme 95, I suspect making that film influenced von Trier to create Dogme 95.

Have you googled Dogme 95? Filmmakers all over the world followed its principles.

I cannot comment on 'The Celebration', no coherently or cogently.  My first level of experience with the film was as both an incest survivor and the mother of an incest survivor.

One note on your very well written commentary:  I blanched to read your repeated use of the word 'fuck', which you have not used much in our past interactions. Then I remember that for many years, whenever I told someone about my daughter's incest, I always said "he butt bucked her', even though most people winced at my language. I wanted them to wince. I wanted people to know incest and pedophilia go on all the time, it is ugly and they should, at the very least, wince to hear about it.

I can't write about 'The Celebration' without writing about my experience as an incest survivor and the mother of one. It is wrenching to write about it and you aren't my friend, so why would I risk needless suffering to relate to you theory that the film is a metaphor for how western, capitalist, dominator culture rapes, or violates, humans as a fundamental cultural mechanism. I am glad to read a male sharing such thoughts, though. And I reiterate:  you write so beautifully, Marc. You know I have long believed you should be writing books.

Anyway, longwinded as ever, I really just wanted to post a suggestion. Given your theory that in 'The Celebration' rape is a metaphor for the dominator culture*" I'd be interested to read your comments after you watch, if you haven't already, Breaking the Waves. It is a brutal film about, at a metaphor level, western society uses women and women allow themselves to be used.

*I have not used the word patriarchy since I read Riane Eisler's book, The Partnership Way. Using the word, I concluded long ago, only reinforces negative patterns humanity will release as it heals itself. Patriarchy and matriarchy are a bit analogous to the patisanship we see in politics. I see little gain in perpetuating the schism. And I know many men who are just as offended by women using the word matriarchy or feminism -- feminism is getting to be a dirty word! -- as I find myself feeling, if not quite offended, a bit dissonant, to hear the word patriarchy.

You now the way forward:  partnership, collaboration.

Good call on your observation that the real celebration was the siblings dancing, although I think the sixtieth birthday party was integral to that celebration. The whole celebration was needed for the siblings to get to that dancing together.  Too many humans want to skip past the hard bits of interaction. Not enough humans have the courage to do what the incested son did.

I confronted my father, who incested me from age 6 to 7.  You might remember how my mother put a stop to it:  I send you 40 pages single-spaced typed called 'she who must be loved' and you read it. As I have tried to engage with your well written, intelligence analysis of 'The Celebration', I have felt a lot of old pain around incest.  I can't share my real thoughts about the film without sharing those feelings and I have been unwilling to stir up my pain for a blog comment you probably wouldn't read anyway.

Check out Breaking the Waves by Lars von Trier, in the film debut of the brilliant Emily Watson. It may have predated Dogme 95 but it belongs in the Dogme 95 school.

And check out Dogville, starring Nicole Kidman. Dogville was such an interesting film. von Trier dispensed with conventional sets and showed he could create powerful film stories with minimal sets, like an off-Broadway theater with no budget for sets. He showed that the story people have to tell is what matters. And the story in the film is also about women's debasement by the dominator culture.

I know you don't care if I comment but ever since you posted this, I have ruminated a lot about the film, my past as an incest survivor and the mother of one.  It's not just society 'out there' that rapes the human spirit.  People violate one another every day and all the time, like treating someone like a scheduling detail when you have invited them to celebrate their sixtieth birthday. You might see parallels to the sixtieth birthday in the film and my sixtieth birthday last August and how you treated my birthday. Clearly it was not a celebration to you, eh? See?  this is why I have not posted. I keep going to the same places and I know it would anger and hurt you to read this so then I delete, as I will delete this.