After launching an international film movement, warring with Icelandic pop princesses, and absorbing massive amounts of criticism for daring to satirize the race relations and politics of a western super power he has never actually visited - and never will thanks to a severe fear of flying - not to mention seeing one of his most beloved creations mercilessly butchered in public by Stephen King and American network TV suits, Danish maverick Lars von Trier was ready for a break. And so, putting aside the planned third installment in his America trilogy and the technical restrictions of the Dogme movement he co-founded Lars set out to do something he had never done before. He made a comedy. Sure, I've always argued that von Trier's work is littered with humor - there's a gallows wit to Dogville and Manderlay that the knee jerk right wing critics missed entirely - but never before has he set out to create a purely comic effort.
Lars being Lars he just can't resist some technical gimmickry and self reflective narration, and he can't stay entirely away from the social criticism, either, but The Boss of it All is, largely, what it sets out to be: a light hearted comedy with absurdist leanings. It has the inconsistencies that you'd expect from a first time comic effort and the technical limits von Trier adopts for this outing are not nearly as successful as the Dogme limitations in achieving his aims, two factors that render it a fairly minor entry in the von Trier canon, but it is nonetheless a worthwhile effort.
Ravn has a problem. The weak willed founder of a Copenhagen IT firm, Ravn has for years played the part of just another lowly employee while pretending that the real boss was far away in America sending his instructions through Ravn via email. This way, he figures, he is left free to make unpopular decisions without becoming unpopular himself. After all, who can blame him for decisions made by a far away, always unseen boss? It is a system that has served Ravn well for years, but no more. You see, he is on the verge of selling his company to Icelandic interests for massive profit but the Icelandic buyer - played by famous director Fridrik Thor Fridriksson - will deal only with the owner of the company. What is Ravn to do? He could declare himself the owner in public but that would ruin his relationship with his employees. No, it is better to go out and hire an out of luck actor to take on the role. And so arrives Kristoffer, a mostly failed actor obsessed with an obscure Italian playwright, to become for a short time the fabled Boss Of It All.
Things don't go as planned, of course, and what was to be a one day job for Kristoffer stretches out to a solid week, a week in which he must cope with the company's assortment of eccentric employees. There's the woman in charge of HR, determined to prove the boss is not gay after all, despite his having her told her so in emails written by Ravn before Kristoffer arrived on the scene. Then there's the secretary the absent boss apparently proposed to at some point, a proposal she has been obsessed with ever since. There's Mette, who screams and cries at any sudden noise. There's the tech whiz who speaks no Danish. The country boy who turns violent at any imagined slight. And then, of course, there's Ravn himself, whose constant manipulation of the fictional boss has woven an intricate web of lies for Kristoffer to navigate as he realizes that Ravn is neither so weak nor so harmless as he first appeared.
As a comedian von Trier proves every bit as broad a writer as a satirist, his characters written in sweeping arcs that are utterly implausible if taken at face value but work just fine in the skewed world of the film. Taken with the von Trier scripted Erik Nietszche: The Early Years, this film makes a back to back duo of von Trier projects that exist largely to poke fun at the eccentricities and odd obsessions of actors and other artistic types, while also taking a good run at the absurdities perpetuated in the name of business. Like his earlier films there's not a lot in here that von Trier seems to like, it's just that this time out he's laughing about it rather than screaming.
While packing away the Dogme manifesto, The Boss of it All adopts a different set of physical limitations for the film maker. Like a Dogme film, this was shot entirely using natural light - which makes for some visible differences from shot to shot as we move between takes shot at different times of the day. Unlike Dogme, however, which insists on entirely handheld cameras, von Trier here devised a computer controlled tripod system that had the movements pre-programmed and manipulated by a computer regardless of what the actors were doing at the time. What this was meant to accomplish I have no idea, what it actually does is result in a steady image that is much easier to watch than a Dogme style film, which is a plus, but which loses much of the intimacy of a Dogme style film, which is a significant minus. It's an interesting experiment, but not so effective.
The Boss of it All is, ultimately, intended as little more than a piece of entertainment and on that level it succeeds. It's a fun little film, assuming you enjoy the very dry Scandinavian sense of humor on display, though one that lacks the sort of staying power of von Trier's earlier works. The fresh Canadian R1 DVD release from Seville features a solid transfer in the proper aspect ratio and the original Danish audio with optional English and French subtitles. The only included bonus feature is a 2005 interview with von Trier conducted by Canadian film maker Eva Ziemsen which is fairly banal in terms of the questions posed - they've all been asked before in many other interviews with the man - but pretty entertaining in terms of watching von Trier squirm uncomfortably, not sure where to look while speaking. Ziemsen, you see, showed up unannounced and got von Trier to agree to the interview by offering to do it nude.
"All fire, no smoke?"
That's a good thing, isn't it, or do I have my sayings mixed up?
For me, Lars earned his medals with "The Kingdom". Stellar.
Isn't it "aAll smoke and no fire"? Although I'm not sure this saying actually exists.
The phrase is "All smoke and no fire" but I flipped it in this case for effect. Sort of a "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" implication. LvT is like a raging inferno that draws a lot of attention but nothing is burning (i.e the smoke would mean he is actually having a real affect on cinema beyond ego). Perhaps the analogy is a bit obtuse! In simple terms, I don't like the guy or his films.
Agree with Visualist, Dancer in the Dark has to be one of the most annoying films ever made. Artificial and manipulative with the viewer. And Bjork seriously can't act, stick with the singing.
"Dancer in the Dark has to be one of the most annoying films ever made. Artificial and manipulative with the viewer" -- That is kinda the point. LvT keeps laying things on with enough force (followed by grace) to keep the film going, despite the incredible artifice on display. It is a strange combination that I cannot recall a filmmaker doing outside of Michael Haneke's FUNNY GAMES (and it's 4th wall breaking sprinkled amongst sharp suspense generation). I think on some level LvT was in full experimental mode with Dancer, and to a large degree totally pulled it off. Being "annoying" is the parcel there, I thought it was quite effectively executed (pun intended)
Likewise with Dogvile which has a number of shots specifically designed to take into account that there are no visible walls in the set.
I'm not talking about technical stuff, i'm talking about the plot and the characters. The way things happen, how characters develope and so on. Oh sure, the film is trying to make some point about the cruelty of people and life and what not, but not in a way that feels convincing, or even sincere at all.
The again, i'm on the minority, oh, i hated Funny Games too.