10 Movies Only Directed As Experiments
1. An "Anti-Hollywood" Drama With A Strict Minimalist Shooting Style - Festen
The Experiment
Festen (aka The Celebration) is the first film in the Dogme 95 series, an artistic movement conceived by Danish filmmakers Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier.
As a protest against excessive Hollywood productions, Dogme films must conform to a set of strict stylistic guidelines, namely purely location shooting with no sets, only diegetic sound recorded during filming, handheld camerawork, colour film without any post-production grading and no "superficial action" (such as murders). This is in an attempt to train a focus on the story and characters above all else.
Vinterberg's Festen tells the tale of a family gathering to celebrate their patriarch's 60th birthday, with deliciously darkly comic results.
It was the first Dogme film and, therefore, a massive creative gamble, to see whether or not the dreamy Dogme manifesto was actually a viable filmmaking alternative.
How Did It Turn Out?
Festen was an instant critical hit, winning the Jury Prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival and quickly earning esteem as a cult classic of world cinema.
More importantly, though, it effectively made Dogme a dramatic subgenre of its own, with 35 Dogme movies being made between 1998 and 2004, before Vinterberg and von Trier decided the rules were themselves becoming formulaic stylistic shackles.