Ode to the Danes

8/14/07

The Boss of it All
Written and directed by Lars von Trier

This is the first Danish-language film Lars von Trier has made in several years. Recently, he’s been making English-language films—ones that TVOR cannot force herself to go to—like Dogville and Manderlay. This film, however, is a comedy. It doesn’t have any stars (at least, not ones most Americans would know), it’s obviously low-budget, and it’s a lot of fun.

This is the set-up: the real owner of a company (we have no idea what the company is or what it does) has invented an imaginary boss so he can escape any blame when he makes an unpopular decision. After years of successful buck-passing, he finally must produce the imaginary boss in order to complete the sale of the company. To accomplish this, he hires an out-of-work actor, and sets him loose with no information of any kind, including such basics as a name. To make things even more difficult for the fake boss, the owner has developed extensive e-mail relationships between the “boss” and the employees of the firm, with a different “boss” persona developed for each employee. There’s a lot of comic potential here, and von Trier satirizes the business world, actors, filmmakers, and people in general.

The look of the film is odd. There is no cinematographer as such, for von Trier uses a technique called Automavision, where a computer randomly points the camera. TVOR does not understand why removing the human element from the creation of art is a good or desirable thing. It does make for an unsettling feeling film, which is what the fake boss would probably be going through too. At any rate, the film has resonance for just about anyone who has had a boss, or been one.

The Boss of it All isn’t exactly in wide release, but it is out there, and will be playing for a week at SIFF Cinema in Seattle from August 17-23.

Video notes (love those Danes!):

TVOR loves Danish films. Not indiscriminately, of course, but more often than not, the ones that show up in the U.S. are quite good. It’s a very small country, after all. How do they manage to put out all those good films? Here are some that are worth checking out:

Ulrich Thomsen is the lead in a couple of films where family goings-on rise to Shakespearean heights. Celebration, written and directed by Thomas Vinterberg, tells the story of the worst family birthday dinner ever. The Inheritance shows the downside of going into the family business.

Susanne Bier’s After the Wedding was nominated for the foreign film Oscar earlier this year. The film tells the story of a Danish man (Mads Mikkelsen, the blood-weeping baddie from Casino Royale) returning home from India in order to try to get a large donation to support an orphanage he’s running. The film lost to The Lives of Others, but it’s still good. Bier’s earlier film Brothers is about, not surprisingly, two brothers, one who is married, responsible, and in the military, and one who is none of the above. In Open Hearts, a still earlier film, an accident that paralyzes a young man results in new and changing relationships among an extended group of people.

Christoffer Boe’s Reconstruction tells a weird but compelling story of a man who steps out on his girlfriend, then finds he can’t return to his former life. Literally.

If some of these are a little intense for you, Anders Thomas Jensen wrote and directed Adam’s Apples, a black comedy telling the story of a racist skinhead ex-convict who does community service at a church run by an unnaturally upbeat vicar. Ulrich Thomsen plays the skinhead, and Mads Mikkelsen plays the vicar. Jensen also wrote, co-wrote or did the stories for many of the other films mentioned here.

And if you want something much lighter, try Mifune. In it, a young man leaves his life in the city to return to the family farm, so that he can care for his mentally disabled brother. He does this with the help of a prostitute on the run, a development that is not appreciated by his urban fiancé.

In Italian for Beginners, some Danes looking for love think learning Italian is a good first step. It’s funny, sweet, and fun.