Purely Joyful Movie!

A different way of telling a story

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

All the actors are really good in this movie but Jens Albinus is a pure genius, his performance in "the boss of it all" outclasses any actor i've ever seen (i'am a cinéphile and i watch a lot of movies from all over the world ).Of course, Lars von trier has a lot to do about that performance, since that movie, he's my top director as well.I've seen a lot of comedies but how many comedies can you watch all over years and still being interested and even laugh of the jokes you already know perfectly well ?That's the only one i know. Because Lars von Trier set the scenes with humour and intelligence combined and his actors have a lot of self-derision, particularly Jens Albinus.That's where all his genius come from, that and his actors skills. there is a lot of good actors but none as good as him with half his self derision, that's what makes him unique.It's really difficult to choose your preferred movie but if i had to make that choice, "The boss of it all" would be the one.Simply a masterpiece ...

Ravn (Peter Gantzler) is a Danish entrepreneur who, due to an almost pathological need to be liked by everyone, has trouble effectively managing the employees who work for him. To overcome this deficiency, he devises an elaborate ruse, one that involves hiring an out-of-work actor (Jens Albinus) to pose as a fictitious company president whose job it will be to both bark out the orders and deflect any blowback that might come his way from the disgruntled workers. At first, Kristoffer goes along with the plan, convincing the staff that he is indeed the CEO of the firm and that he actually knows what it is he's talking about when it comes to implementing and enforcing company policy. Yet, slowly, Kristoffer comes to suspect that Ravn may not be quite as pure in heart or benign in his motives as the young actor was initially led to believe. Eventually, Kristoffer has to decide just how far he's willing to go with this charade if carrying it to its completion means backstabbing the very people he's actually come to care about in the short time he's been working there.Like virtually all of Lars Van Trier's work, the highly satirical "The Boss of it All," is an acquired taste, one that demands a degree of patience from the viewer - along with a rather high threshold for pretentiousness - before it can be fully understood and appreciated. And, indeed, the first half of the film makes for rather rough sailing as we attempt to descry, through all the verbal fog and cinematic obscurity, just what it is that Van Trier is trying to accomplish. We know it has something to do with skewering the whole corporate-world-mentality thing, but the extreme verbosity and self-conscious film-making style go a long ways towards muddling the message.But, damned if the whole thing doesn't somehow manage to pull itself together long about the midway point and we cruise safely to our admittedly unexpected destination. Part of the reason for the turnabout is that Van Trier is finally able to crystallize his theme once Kristoffer realizes he has a serious moral decision to make and when it starts becoming unclear which "boss" is really pulling the strings - i.e. who is the puppeteer and who the puppet, who the scenarist and who the actor - in this oddball relationship.I've never been overly fond of Van Trier's self-conscious stylistic hallmarks - jump-cuts, catawampus framing, self-referential, film-within-a-film narration - since they serve mainly to call attention to the filmmaker and to throw us out of the drama he's showing us. Still, there are moments when the dark, tongue-in-cheek humor successfully hits its mark, and Van Trier does a nice job dovetailing his parody of the theater into his satire on business. And the unexpected ending demonstrates that none of us is truly above selling out those we care for if the price is right for doing so.

I've had it with comedies. I mean, I like comedies, always have. Probably I simply got too much depressed by the continuing lack of ideas displayed by writers and the continuing lack of style displayed by directors. When I started to watch "Direktøren for det hele" I surely didn't know what to expect. I mean... Lars von Trier is used to shot a genre that for sure isn't comedy. But oh boy if he's good at it. I don't want comment the technique of shooting (that is brilliant) but simply the content. And that's what makes this movie a great comedy: 1) the character have the right balance between absurdity and reality, starting from the actor failed who speaks only about Gambini; the boss who doesn't want to appear hard so he invented one; the employer who can't speak danish in a good way cause his lessons were cut (by the "boss"); the screaming girl at the copying machine; the punch in the face guy; the "you wouldn't **ck me until I bl** you good" woman; the Finnish buyer who hates danish (spectacular).2) the story is funny and "sad" at the same time: the boss of a company, wanting to preserve his image of a good man, invent a fake boss to finger him with all his bad actions. But when he decides to sell the company, the buyer wants to speak with the invented boss. Here comes on stage a failed actor who should have played the part of the boss just for a few minutes but that ends up doing it for one week. During this time he'll have to confront all the people that he's supposed to have directed in all of those preceding years, confronting with odd situations knowing little or nothing of each of them and of the company itself.3) great moments: a) when the boss of it all agree to a request of an employer without knowing what it is (that would be marrying her);b) when the mustache guy punches in the face the boss of it all;c) all the times the Finnish buyer damns the danish;d) when the boss of it all confess he isn't actually the real boss, because there exist the boss of the boss of it all;e) when Ravn confesses, and the mustache guy punches him too;f) when the Finnish mentions Gambini, and suddenly everything "changes" in the plane of the boss/actor.Why couldn't all the comedies be like this one?

This will be a little hard to understand, for those who are not familiar with Scandinavian office culture and enterprise democracy. For those who are, it's funny.The unemployed actor gets a job. He's supposed to act as executive, during some sensitive business with an Icelandic buyer. It doesn't develop like he has imagined, but in fact it doesn't develop like anyone has imagined.There's lots of kicking here in every direction and not at least against cultural snobbism. It's von Trier back to the basics, but not that easy to grip for people outside a Scandinavian environment.