Man Bites Dog
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Man Bites Dog
Plot
Man Bites Dog is a Belgian faux-documentary and high-concept satire of media violence which follows the lethal exploits of Benoit Benoit Poelvoorde, an affable, and very talkative, serial killer. He kills for money, and he kills for pleasure, and he talks all the while about philosophy and the proper technique for weighing a corpse down underwater. He is followed through his slaughter-fest by the filmmakers, Rémy and André (the actual filmmakers, Rémy Belvaux and André Bonzel), and the line between reporter and subject becomes blurred pretty quickly. The filmmakers become more and more involved in Benoit's actions, starting with the relatively innocent act of holding a flashlight for him. Eventually, when their funding runs out, Benoit hires them to continue making the film, and soon they are accomplices in a gang rape. While this film has the subtlety of a sledgehammer, its message rings true: the media tend to become part of the stories they report upon as surely as a physicist changes a wave by looking at it. ~ John Voorhees, RoviReview
Kitted out with the shoestring realism of a black-and-white mockumentary and a lot of over-the-top media satire, C'est Arrive Pres de Chez Vous manages to invert serial-killer clichés by focusing on the banality of murder itself. Instead of the picturesque boogeymen of Silence of the Lambs or Seven, we get Benoit Poelvoorde's loquacious, charming, and workmanlike Ben, who treats killing like any other enjoyable, but difficult job and dispatches kids, grannies, and young lovers equally matter-of-factly. Poelvoorde and his fellow writer/director/actors, Remy Belvaux and Andre Bonzel, invest their film with a bleached-out squalor that's partially a function of camcorder cinema and partially the result of their wittily depraved script. With a face and demeanor that recalls James Woods at his cold-blooded best and a character so blasé about his chosen profession that he's almost likable in a sick, twisted way, Poelvoorde is the only one of the filmmaker/performers who really registers onscreen. Like the real-life media functionaries who daily chew up reality into tabloid gruel, the others exist on the periphery, omnipresent shadows flickering across the colorful depravities they serve up as entertainment. C'est Arrive Pres de Chez Vous is a distinctly unpleasant film to watch, but its quotidian monstrosity is eerily accurate. ~ Brian J. Dillard, RoviCast
- Benoît Poelvoorde - Ben
- Remy Belvaux - Remy (Reporter)
- André Bonzel - Cameraman
- Jean-Marc Chenut - Patrick (Sound Man #1)
Credit
Remy Belvaux - Director, André Bonzel - Director, Benoît Poelvoorde - Director, Remy Belvaux - Editor, Eric Dardill - Editor, Jean-Marc Chenut - Composer (Music Score), Laurence Dufrene - Composer (Music Score), André Bonzel - Cinematographer, Remy Belvaux - Producer, André Bonzel - Producer, Benoît Poelvoorde - Producer, Remy Belvaux - Screenwriter, André Bonzel - Screenwriter, Benoît Poelvoorde - Screenwriter, Vincent Tavier - Screenwriter| Man Beneath (1919 Film), Man Behind the Curtain (1916 Film) | |
| Man Chu (1983 Film), Man Crazy (1927 Film) |
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Man Bites Dog (film)
| Man Bites Dog | |
|---|---|
 Criterion Collection DVD cover |
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| Directed by | Rémy Belvaux André Bonzel Benoît Poelvoorde |
| Produced by | Rémy Belvaux André Bonzel Benoît Poelvoorde |
| Written by | Rémy Belvaux André Bonzel Benoît Poelvoorde Vincent Tavier |
| Starring | Benoît Poelvoorde |
| Cinematography | André Bonzel |
| Editing by | Rémy Belvaux Eric Dardill |
| Release date(s) | 12 September 1992 (Canada (TIFF)) 9 October 1992 (United States (New York Film Festival)) 15 January 1993 (Wide) 15 January 1993 (United Kingdom) 28 May 1993 (Australia) |
| Running time | 95 min |
| Country | Belgium |
| Language | French |
Man Bites Dog (French: C'est arrivé près de chez vous, It Happened in Your Neighborhood) is a darkly comedic crime Belgian mockumentary starring Benoît Poelvoorde. In the film, a crew of filmmakers follow a serial killer, recording his crimes for a documentary they are producing. At first dispassionate observers, they find themselves caught up in the increasingly chaotic violence. Since its release the picture has become an international cult film.[1] [2]
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Contents
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Plot
Ben is a charismatic serial killer who discusses at length whatever comes to mind, be it architecture, philosophy or classical music.
A film crew made up of three men join Ben on his sadistic adventures, recording them as a fly on the wall documentary. Ben takes them to meet his family and friends, while explaining at length the "craft" of his work.
He then ventures into apartment buildings explaining how it is more cost-effective to attack old people than young couples because the former have more cash at home and are easier to kill. In a following scene, he screams wildly ("I'm going to kill you") at an elderly lady, causing her to have a heart attack. As she lies dying, he casually remarks that this method allowed him to spare a bullet. Ben continues with his candid explanations and his murders, targeting anyone who comes his way: women, children, immigrants and postmen (his favourite victims).
The camera crew begin to get more and more involved in the murders, first as mere accomplices but eventually taking an active part in them. During filming, two of them are shot, their deaths later called "occupational hazards" by the crew. The camera crew finally crosses the line into active participation when Ben takes a couple hostage in their own home. He holds the man at gunpoint and encourages the camera crew to participate in raping the woman. The following morning, the camera dispassionately records the aftermath: both the man and the woman are dead.
Ben's violence becomes more and more random and motiveless, until he shoots an acquaintance in front of his girlfriend and family during a family meal, shocking his loved ones but also intimidating them into keeping silent. Events slip out of Ben's (and the camera crew's) control when the relatives of one of his victims start taking revenge on him and his family. Ben discovers that his parents have been killed, along with his girlfriend: a flautist, she has been murdered in a particularly humiliating manner, with her flute inserted into her anus. He at last decides that he must go on the run. He meets the camera crew for an emotional farewell, but in the middle of reciting a poem he is abruptly shot dead by an off-camera gunman. The camera crew is then picked off, one by one. After the cameraman has dropped the camera onto the ground, it keeps running and the film ends with the discarded camera recording the death of the fleeing sound recordist.
Production
The film is shot in black and white and was produced on a shoe-string budget by four student filmmakers, led by director Rémy Belvaux. The film's writers, Belvaux, Poelvoorde and Bonzel, all appear in the film using their own first names: Poelvoorde as Ben, the killer; Belvaux as Rémy, the director; and Bonzel as André, the camera operator. The genesis of the idea came from shooting a documentary without any money. This film is rated NC-17 by the Motion Picture Association of America for "strong graphic violence".[3]
Although it is never shown or suggested in the film itself that Benoit kills a baby, the original poster features an image of a baby's pacifier with spattering blood coming from an unseen target at the end of Benoit's gun. For foreign release posters (not including the Region 4/Australian release), the baby's pacifier was changed to a set of dentures.
References
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