The Boss of It All
An IT company hires an actor to serve as the company's president in order to help the business get sold to a cranky Icelander.
An IT company hires an actor to serve as the company's president in order to help the business get sold to a cranky Icelander.
The Boss of It All: Lars von Trier's Comedic Deconstruction of Control
Who knew Lars von Trier could make us laugh? In "The Boss of It All", he doesn't just satirize corporate culture - he dismantles artistic pretension with surgical comedic precision.
The film opens with von Trier himself, reflected in a window, perched in a cherry picker camera dolly - a literal deus ex machina, playing God while simultaneously mocking the very concept of directorial omnipotence. Here, he's gleefully playing God and immediately undermining himself.
Using Automavision, a computer program that randomly determines camera angles, von Trier literally relinquishes directorial control. It's a brilliant mirror of the film's narrative: Ravn hiring an actor to be a fictional boss, thus avoiding personal responsibility. The director becomes just another actor in his own absurdist play.
Kristoffer, the hired "boss", embodies this perfectly. "I have to consult my character," he says - a line that skewers both corporate role-playing and Dogme 95's Rule 6, which demands that action must be motivated solely by character emotion. It's a delicious mockery of the very artistic constraints von Trier champions.
Ultimately, von Trier's message is disarmingly simple: Don't take life - or art - so seriously. It's only life, after all. It may even mirror the "senior six" throwing the beloved Teddy Bear over the cliff.
A comedy that's also a profound philosophical joke? This is vintage Lars von Trier!