Von Trier encourages audiences to 'Lookey' closer

The director has planted five clues in new comedy 'The Boss of it All'.

Dec 11 2006

Anyone unfamiliar with the Dogme 95 collective might think that director Lars von Trier's films are riddled with mistakes. Lack of music, wonky camera movement, sparse sets and natural light can make films like 'Manderlay' seem like, well, a bit of a mess. However, it's a testament to his perfectionism that even Von Trier's mistakes are deliberate. In fact, the Danish director's new movie 'The Boss of it All' includes five to seven out-of-context 'mistakes' as part of a new concept he has created called 'Lookey'.

'For the casual observer, it's just a glitch or a mistake,' von Trier told Screen Daily in a recent interview. 'For the initiated, it's a riddle to be solved. All 'Lookeys' can be decoded by a system that is unique.'

The director came up with the idea to invigorate passive audiences and urges other directors to include interactive aspects into their movies. Von Trier says the game will hopefully make audiences watch his film more than once, although he warns that it could also distract them from the movie.

As incentive to play his game, the 'Dogville' director has offered 30,000 Danish kroner (£2,700) to the first Dane who finds every Lookey in his new film and a chance to be an extra in his next project.

Besides Lookey, 'The Boss of it All' contains another new innovation known as automavision. With it, von Trier does away with the age-old need for a camera man, opting instead for a computer to choose ideal fixed positions and when to tilt or pan or zoom.

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