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Now On DVD: Lars Von Trier, Boss Of It All

by T.O. Lawrence
11/30/2007

As peculiar as he is eccentric, writer/director Lars von Trier has again concocted a filmic brew love-drunk on cinema and all its possibilities. His work has spanned from the chalk-drawn stages of Dogville to the bizarre tragedy/musical of Dancer in the Dark. Though hardly digested easily, his peculiar fantasies never cease to push boundaries and open doors. With his latest film, The Boss of it All, this is again the case.

A comedy for those with thick skin, a smart sense of humor and a flavor for subtitles, von Trier translates funny into Danish and back again. He does everything possible to make fun of every fan he’s got, slighting art-film camerawork, preachy director voiceovers and the obscure references we all use to make ourselves look smarter. Von Trier addresses the audience in voiceovers at the end of each act as the man behind the curtain, daring you not to see him spitting in your soup.

Much in the vein of Bottle Rocket and Schizopolis, von Trier makes an unapologetic series of in-jokes making sure that one viewing cannot be nearly enough to grasp all of the pranks he plays. Though a seemingly simple comedy about an actor taking on the role of the president of an IT company using the stage-name of “Svend E.” (Jens Albinus), von Trier’s writing offers constant insight and ridicule of film culture of every kind. A parody straight out of film school, it favors the smart joke over the easy laugh but throws in the odd slapstick as well.

The actors, a group of yahoo Danes, zany on whatever it is they’re smoking in Denmark, work their character parodies in a Monty Python sketch: A misty-eyed woman terrorized by a semi-sentient copy machine, a weather-concerned designer who has a tendency to snap and the office sleep-about maneuvering around on some specialty sex-desk by IKEA. All these characters boil over like beakers in a mad science experiment and offer the best of the movie’s comedic icing.

Von Trier does, however, try to teach us something in all this and forces meaning into his madness. Reminding us of the moral struggle involved in the office and everyday life and the lessons we should learn from them about the true nature of human character, the movie drags a bit in teaching us our lesson, opting to increase tension rather than get to the punch line. Split between Svend’s relationships with the other workers, the jokes and the editing, you can get a little distracted at times trying to keep up with the nine-hundred layers of meaning and humor when you should just be trying to laugh.

Unfortunately, however, there are drawbacks to his no-holds-barred clowning. His Brechtian tendencies in the guise of comedic editing leaves a film that looks edited with a machete and shot back through the sights of an M-60 machine gun. This process, called “Automavision," in order to decrease human interference, separates the viewer from habits of objectivity and distraction and allow them clearer insight into the true moral underlying the story. This increases the moral resonance underlying the acting but really, you have to ask if he’s really being all that serious. Though it adds to the funny at times, it will no doubt give you a throbbing migraine and makes the subtitles dance with pain. But seriously, suffer through it. Laughter is the best medicine, after all.

So if you can stand to be abused, physically and emotionally, all for the sake of a joke that you won’t get until later this is the film for you. Otherwise, rent Friends instead.

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