OUT OF THE CELLULOID CLOSET

One of the potentially interesting new films to have its UK release this month is The Boss of It All (Direktøren for det hele) from the innovative Danish film director, Lars Von Trier whose pictures include Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark and who was a co-founder of the avant-garde Dogme 95 collective which undertook to pursue a purist approach to film-making by refusing expensive and spectacular special effects, post-production modifications and other gimmickry choosing, instead, to focus on story and performances.

However, in making The Boss of It All, Trier seems to have embraced rather than shunned the technological trickery of modern movie-making since the film has been shot using the 'Automavision' process, which requires the director to select the best possible fixed camera position and then leave it to a computer to choose when to tilt, pan or zoom.

Anyway, the film is already generating some lively word of mouth and is clearly going to be worth a watch...

Meanwhile, I was reminded that Lars Von Trier made history by directing the first ever cinema commercial to not only portray a same-sex relationship but to do so in a delightfully romantic (even erotic) way. Entitled Timian (Thyme) it was made to advertise the Danish newspaper Politiken and was made for Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising in 1993...



The extraordinary range of gay and lesbian images (good, bad and indifferent) portrayed in commercials can be seen on the website of the Commercial Closet Association: a watchdog that monitors not just offensive portrayals of sexual orientation but also flagrant pursuits of the pink pound!

Here's their own commercial...