The Boss of It All
This is definitely his best movie! Okay, it’s not, actually there is nothing that could potentially surpass Dogville. But! This is one of his best accomplishments and I can’t believe I haven’t seen this earlier. With “Adam’s Apples”, the humorous parts in “Festen” and Lars von Trier’s own, absolutely wonderful “Occupations”, I should have known that his first comedy must be gorgeous.
Back then, I was upset that Lars von Trier did not continue the America trilogy. It’s too bad that “Manderlay” was such an incredible flop; although it was not as good as “Dogville”, I still think it’s a great film. But if “The Boss of It All” is a reason for which he put “Wasington”, then I wholeheartedly approve. The premise is lovely: A company boss is unable to tell inconvenient truths to his employees, so he pretends there is a “boss of it all” who decides over what he does. But one day, he wants to sell his company to people who want to see this “boss of it all”, so he has to hire a friend who has to pretend to be this particular person. Unfortunately for him, his employees suddenly see their “boss of it all” and now want to talk to him. In the hands of Lars von Trier, this setting florishes to a wonderfully hilarious black comedy, with many twists and quite an unforeseen end. I especially love the Icelander who hates Danish people and to some degree I am actually glad that he got what he wanted in the end. Such a great, unpleasant old grumpy man! Hahaha. His outbursts of hatred against the Danes were hilariously refreshing, in the context of this film.
More than anything else, I am watching this film with the eyes of someone who has seen “Idioterne” and “Festen” and a bunch of other films that share this weird sense of humour. I have yet to see somebody who disliked “Adam’s Apples” yet at the same time I don’t really understand why it’s funny. “The Boss of It All” made me laugh out loud quite a few times, and I couldn’t even explain why! So yeah, if you like “Adam’s Apples”, I wholeheartedly recommend “The Boss of It All”. It made my day!