When he wants to, Lars von Trier can be completely humorless (parts of Antichrist are sufficient evidence). On the other hand, he can also be very funny. Direktören för det hele is a comedy and a good one at that. An actor is hired to act the role of company boss. Not on screen, but in the company, where one man, Ravn, can not take the responsibility of the boss, but rather wants to give it to somebody else. Kristoffer is an unscrupulous man who thinks that a good actor should be the master of any situation. So, Kristoffer is presented to the personnel of the It-company as the boss who has uptil now been invisible. Even though this is a lightweight (but not conventional) film, it has moments of brilliance. In one of them, the real boss and the actor boss is sitting on a childish carousel taking about gravely things. In a very funny way, the film shows the self-deception involved in dodging responsibility. Ravn wants to be the cuddly bear, friends with everybody. The friendly bear cannot be the same person who makes tough business decisions, such as selling the company off to a pair of tough Icelanders who hate the sentimentality of the Danes. It turns out that Ravn is perhaps the one doing just as much acting as Kristoffer, and that we might even say that Kristoffer's acting is more uncomplicated than Ravn's. Of course, the film can be read on two levels: as an insider joke about directors and actors, and as a film about the lack of responsibility in business.
A curious detail of the film is its cinematic style, which is claimed to stem from a computer generated system of angles, pans and tilts. All this creates a frenzy & nervous backdrop for the story. This film won't change your life, but it is indeed very entertaining in its self-conscious "flat" and "harmless" way.
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