Having directed some of the most tear duct-taxing movies in recent memory (Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark), as well as some exhaustively think-y, Brechtian pieces (Dogville, Manderlay) director Lars von Trier would now like to make you laugh. Or would he? It's just sort of hard to tell in his latest film, The Boss of it All.

There are some things that do not bode well for comedy. For instance, an affiliation with a certain vaguely pretentious film collective. Or, the decision to let a computer shoot the movie for you (via a process von Trier dubs "Automavision"). Computers are useful for a thing or two, but they're crap at comedic timing.

In spite of this conceit, von Trier still manages to make an interesting film, not least because its premise is pretty good: In bleakest Copenhagen, Ravn (Peter Gantzler) has a sweet job running a successful IT company. He loves funning around with his employees, offering bear hugs and empathetic mellow smilebeams aplenty. But dude is such a milquetoast that he never got around to telling anyone in the company that he is, in fact, their boss and founder. Since he's incapable of owning up to the "bad cop" duties inherent in being the boss, they think he's merely the company lawyer, managing things while the Boss of it All pulls strings from the shadows of America. He's gotten away with the lie for a couple of years, but when an impending business meeting requires the flesh-and-blood presence of The Boss of it All, Ravn hires an out-of-work actor named Kristoffer (Jens Albinus) to pose as the boss for a couple days.

Obsessed with the austere theatrical philosophy of a tedious (fictional) playwright named Gambini, Kristoffer's burning desire to Act way exceeds the demands of his new role as figurehead. It's almost unbearable to watch him cluelessly bungle his way through techie-speak, absorbing the employees' wrath as Ravn blames him for every unpopular company decision--but despite the awkward situations (there are many), Kristoffer starts to care about the dysfunctional family of IT workers. So when he finds out that Ravn has unsavory plans for the company, he commences to rebel against the role Ravn has written for him.

In his narration during the opening scene of The Boss of it All, von Trier intones that what you're about to watch is "a harmless comedy." The fact that you can actually SEE his camera filming in the reflection of the office windows as he tells you, not shows you this fact, should tip you off that it's more than that--it's an endlessly self-referential vehicle for exploring New Film Techniques. Von Trier has declared in interviews that Automavision--in which the camera is allowed to pan and tilt according to random computer whim--is a style "freed of intent." He's also not above having a character name-drop Dogme 95 at one point in the movie. (Because Danish IT specialists probably do that all the time!) Basically, he points to himself--his gimmicky camera technique, the departure in style from his former movies, his narrative omniscience as director--at almost every turn. It's like he wants to outdo himself while simultaneously referencing himself with every move he makes--which isn't always a bad tack, artistically speaking.

If only he had tried as hard to bring the funny along with the absurdity. The cast is deft and assured, and the employees are played with such promising lamb-to-the-slaughter awkwardness that you sort of wish we were allowed to see their characters develop further. Unfortunately, they never really evolve past a collection of eccentric tics, and the humor ends up being a tad too subtle to stand up to the movie's devices.

But, Jesus, it's a gigglefest in comparison to watching Bjork go blind.

The Boss of It All starts an exclusive engagement tonight at the Dobie Theatre. [Info]