Festen is the first of the Danish "Dogme" films, a style of film-making designed to be as pure as possible, with the use of little technology and minimal editing. Cynics might infer that this makes the movies much cheaper to produce, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt based on this film.
Indeed the Dogme ideal helps Festen, as it makes us feel like a part of this very black comedy. Luckily we don't have to be a part of the Klingenfeldt family - there hasn't been a family with so many skeletons in closets and internal strife since The Godfather.
The film centres around the celebration of Helge Klingenfeldt's (Moritzen) sixtieth birthday. He is the patriarch of the family, and so this is a big event. Friends and relatives hurry to his large country estate, but a celebration is not all they're going to get, as long-buried family secrets are dredged up. Not everyone is going to leave happy, and there's a pretty good chance that not everyone is going to leave...