The Boss Of It All

Lars von Trier tries his hand at comedy! There's usually a mischievous twinkle in his eye even when Denmark's most daring director (and its most celebrated neurotic) is tackling such serious subject matter as slavery (Manderlay), hypocrisy and exploitation (Dogville), and gun culture (Dear Wendy - which he wrote). But the sour ironies that underpinned these films are quite different from the playful delight that sparks The Boss Of It All. In the opening voice over von Trier promises no sermonizing, a "harmless" entertainment, and though the film isn't as brainless as all that, it is agreeably light. It's as if at 50 the old troublemaker is beginning to enjoy himself.

The boss of it all doesn't exist. Or rather, Ravn (Peter Gantzler), the senior partner in an IT firm, has invented him to pass the buck when it comes to making unpopular decisions. This presents a problem when an Icelandic business leader refuses to deal with anyone lower down the totem pole. Ravn hires an actor, Kristoffer (Jens Albinus, from The Idiots), to play the boss for the crucial meeting, but this unusual engagement is extended when the deal is postponed, and Ravn's junior partners realize that the fabled uber-boss is finally in the building.

Kristoffer is no Robin Williams when it comes to improvising, but then Ravn hasn't made it easy for him. Each of the partners has a different idea of the boss based on their own email correspondence with him. One thinks he's gay. Another was confused by a proposal of marriage. None of them appreciates the mean working conditions he's imposed all these years.

By all accounts a most demanding boss in ordinary circumstances, Von Trier relishes taking the proverbial out of the pretentious actor (a disciple of the theatrical absurdist "Gambini"), and piles on the complications with merry malice. Not all the jokes translate (a misunderstanding about Hell's Angels, an employee fuming about the mugginess of autumn, the Danish-Icelandic tension) which may be why the film feels about ten minutes too long; even so, office politics are the same minefield everywhere - as The Office has proved. You may not be rolling on the floor, but it is consistently amusing.

True to form, there's a significant element of perversity involved. If the director is the boss on a film set, von Trier has chosen to abdicate at least part of that responsibility on this film, which is shot in a unique style he calls "Automavision". The erstwhile Dogme guru would set the camera up, then press a button and a computer would adjust the frame to a randomized off-set. If LVT didn't like it, he could press the button again and see what else came up. Essentially what this means is a barrage of short mismatched jump cuts between asymmetrical images, and a lot of headless actors.

Von Trier has registered Automavision as a trademark - a joke, presumably, as it's unlikely this invention is going to be taken up by anyone else.

Does The Boss of It All gain anything from this formal experiment? Hardly. At best it's an irritating distration; at worst, a pretentious act of self-sabotage. The movie is strong enough to survive it, but in the circumstances it doesn't seem too heretical to wish for an English-language remake. Steve Coogan or Jim Carrey would have themselves a ball.

Tom Charity
tom.charity@lovefilm.com

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