ANNIVERSARY tries to show the madness of an authoritarian movement by the impact it has on a bourgeois family. The dramaturgical model is based on Chekhov's plays. Professor Ellen and her husband Paul, a successful restaurant owner, are having a family gathering. Lesbian daughter Anna is a comedian with a rock star demeanor, daughter Cynthia and her husband Rob are engaged, left-wing lawyers, daughter “Birdie” puts stars on her face and looks at the world with bewildered puppy eyes. Son Josh, a failed writer, has brought his new girlfriend, Elizabeth, who seems kind of unhinged from the start. She used to be Ellen’s student, and Ellen remembers that she had radical views of a popular movement and a one party system. Elizabeth’s thesis “The Change” became a bestseller the following year. The film shows the breakdown of the family and society in several episodes, each set a year later.

The idea of using Chekhov's plays, which were also written during a time of social upheaval around the turn of the 20th century, as a form of critique of the current revival of authoritarian social theories is obvious, but somewhat short-sighted. Chekhov’s impoverished, anguished landed gentry don’t have much in common with the already small subsection of a very wealthy, educated middle class. The madness that befalls the daughters of the family may seem like an understandable reaction to the omnipresent madness, but it seems theatrically contrived. The film attempts to confront the societal psychosis with a psychotic narrative. This only partially works in political and aesthetic terms, but it is certainly entertaining.

Tom Dorow

Translation: Elinor Lewy