Directors:Remy Belvaux; André Bonzel; Benoît Poelvoorde
AMG Rating:
Genre: Comedy Drama
Movie Type: Media Satire, Black Comedy
Themes: Members of the Press, Crime Sprees
Main Cast: Benoît Poelvoorde, Remy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Jean-Marc Chenut, Alain Oppezzi
Release Year: 1991
Country: FR/BE
Run Time: 95 minutes
MPAA Rating: NC17
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, All Movie Guide
Review
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, All Movie Guide
Cast
Benoît Poelvoorde - Ben
Remy Belvaux - Remy (Reporter)
André Bonzel - Cameraman
Jean-Marc Chenut - Patrick (Sound Man #1)
Alain Oppezzi - Franco (Sound Man #2); Vincent Tavier - Vincent (Sound Man #3); Carlos Miranda - Night Watchman; Jenny Drye - Jenny; Hector Pappaert - Ben's Grandfather; Nelly Pappaert - Ben's Grandmother; Philippe Blasband - Featured Victim; Edith Le Merdy - Nurse; Benoit Mariage - Journalist; Franco Piscopo - Sound Recordist; Pascal Lebrun - Featured Victim; Steven Artels - Victim in Montage; Stéphane Aubier - Journalist; Stephanie Aubier - Featured Victim; Emmanuelle Bada - Journalist; Bruno Belvaux - Featured Victim; Lucien Belvaux - Featured Victim; Paul Bottemanne - Taxi Driver; Jean-Pol Cavillot - Featured Victim; Antoine Chapelot - Wine Waiter; Gina Cotica - Mother; Olivier Cotica - Benichou; Ricardo Cotica - Child; Josephs Craeynest - Victim in Montage; Laurence D'Hondt - Journalist; Rachel Deman - Mamie Tromblon; Fernaud Dubois - Postman; Marcel Engels - Cameraman; Alexandra Fandango - Kalifa; Aldo Fostier - Featured Victim; Alain François - Video Reporter; Clotilde Francois - Victim in Montage; Jean-Paul Geets - Malou's Customer; Irene Gilissen - Lady on Train; Sylviane Godé - Rape Victim (Martine); Patrick Goisse - Victim in Montage; Alain Hologne - Featured Victim; Anny Hologne - Featured Victim; Micheline Hologne - Featured Victim; Andre Kuys - Victim in Montage; Anne LaGrange - Journalist; André Laime - Bed-ridden Old Man; Bob Lens - Victim in Montage; Elaine Leonard - Featured Victim; Malou Madou - Malou; Jean-Claude Maschetti - Featured Victim; Vincent Merveille - Boxer; Valérie Parent - Valerie; Jacqueline Poelvoorde-Pappaert - Ben's Mother; Venelin Poikov - First Postman; Annamaria Szomolanyiova - Violinist; Bertrand Tavier - Victim in Montage; Hughes Tavier - Buffet Waiter; Sabine Tavier - Madame Pipi; Zoltan Tobolik - Rape Victim's Husband; Marie Travier - Featured Victim; Daniel Tursh - Journalist; Pierre Vanbraekel - Father; Willy Vandenbroeck - Boby; Pol Vanderwarren - Ben's Lawyer; Willy Van De Waele - Victim in Montage
Man Bites Dog (French: C'est arrivé près de chez vous, It Happened in Your Neighborhood) is a satirical, Belgian, black comedymockumentary starring Benoît Poelvoorde. In the film, a crew of filmmakers follow a serial killer, recording his crimes and a grotesquely candid commentary for a documentary they are producing. At first dispassionate observers, they find themselves caught up in the increasingly chaotic violence.
Benoit is a charming and charismatic young man who maintains a healthy relationship with his mother, plays the piano and discusses at length whatever comes to mind, be it architecture, philosophy, pigeons or classical music. He is also a serial killer who goes on murderous rampages.
A film crew made up of three men join Benoit on his sadistic adventures, recording them as a fly on the walldocumentary. Benoit 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 at an elderly lady, causing her to have a heart attack. As she lays dying, he casually remarks that this method allowed him to spare a bullet. Benoit 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.
