DIRECTORS/PRODUCERS
Rémy Belvaux
André Bonzel
Benoît Poelvoorde
SCREENWRITERS
Rémy
Belvaux
André Bonzel
Benoît Poelvoorde
Vincent Tavier
CINEMATOGRAPHER
André
Bonzel
MUSIC
Jean-Marc Chenut
EDITORS
Rémy Belvaux
Eric Dardill
CAST
Benoît Poelvoorde
(Ben)
Rémy Belvaux (Remy, Reporter)
André Bonzel (Andre, Cameraman)
Jean-Marc Chenut (Patrick, Sound Man #1)
Alain Oppezzi (Franco, Sound Man #2)
Vincent Tavier (Vincent, Sound Man #3)
Jacqueline Poelvoorde-Pappaert (Ben's Mother)
Nelly Pappaert (Ben's Grandmother)
Hector Pappaert (Ben's Grandfather)
Jenny Drye (Jenny)
Valérie Parent (Valerie)
MPAA rating: NC-17*
Running
time: 95m
U.S. release: January 15, 1993
Video availability: VHS - DVD
* A note on the rating. The official
MPAA rating for Man Bites Dog in its uncut American release
was (and is) NC-17. There are two versions available on VHS:
the NC-17 uncut version, and the edited, unrated version. Those
who still primarily buy videocassettes should make sure they're
getting the version they want. The Criterion DVD, as is Criterion's
tradition with foreign-made films, does not carry an MPAA rating
on the package, but is the uncut version.
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For years now I've held up
Man Bites Dog as the media satire to beat, if only because
it was there first. Not that it was the first media-evil movie
ever -- for that, you'd have to go back at least as far as Billy
Wilder's Ace in the Hole -- but it scooped Serial
Mom, Natural
Born Killers, To
Die For, the endless spate of 1990s films whose directors
suddenly noticed that methods of mass communication were inherently
corrupt and corruptive. Even The
Blair Witch Project owes a debt to Man Bites Dog's
grainy mockumentary shaky-cam style. Like it or not -- and you'd
be excused for not liking it -- this Belgian award-winner has
probably influenced every subsequent media take-off from the
sublime (Series 7) to the ridiculous (Ed
TV).
In the fine tradition of all
hungry moviemakers scrabbling for film stock, the terrible trio
Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel and Benoît Poelvoorde
set out to make the cheapest movie possible. Intended as a calling
card, Man Bites Dog would spoof documentaries by taking
a fictitious serial killer, the crudely affable Ben (Poelvoorde),
as its subject. André Bonzel has said that he and his
cohorts (including co-writer Vincent Tavier, who appears in the
film as one of the ill-fated sound guys) didn't want the movie
to be taken as any statement on violence; the violence was incidental.
The real subject is the essentially false collaborative act of
filming "real life," and at what point collaboration
becomes collusion.
Man Bites Dog may not be "about" violence,
but it contains enough of the stuff to rouse any jaded viewer
of horror or exploitation films. Filmed in grungy black-and-white,
the carnage exists at an aesthetic distance -- the blood spurts
out in oily jets. Yet what's disturbing about the mayhem is not
so much its explicit presentation -- actually, a lot of it takes
place off camera or out of frame, probably to save money on gore
effects -- as the tone surrounding the murders. It's all rather
disaffected and matter-of-fact, with the camera jostling to keep
up and sometimes even revealing a victim's hiding place with
its harsh spotlight. And the movie takes its emotional cue from
its own nonjudgmental camera stare.
Ben is a universal and instantly
recognizable type, if you take away the homicide. Poelvoorde
plays him with a kind of detestable charisma: Ben looks so fulfilled
nattering on to the camera about architecture or whatever else
pops into his head, you can't find it in your heart to resent
his company. The New Yorker critic Anthony Lane suggested
that if a Hollywood studio were so foolhardy as to attempt a
remake (thus far, none has), the perfect American star for Ben
would be James Woods, but that's a bit too on-the-nose. For the
full subversive effect, you'd have to go with Tom Hanks or --
my personal pick -- John Cusack, as long as you didn't soften
Ben or take out his racist musings (at one point, Ben insists
on inspecting the corpse of a black victim to see if what they
say about black men is true).
The film's proper title is
C'est arrivé près de chez vous, which can
be translated as "Coming Soon to a House Near You,"
a puckish twist on movie ads (though the title in the film itself
is subtitled "It Happened in Your Neighborhood," which
sounds way off). Whoever decided to rename it Man Bites Dog
for English-speaking audiences deserves a good cigar, because
it evokes the film's rude exploration of audience complicity
as well as its studied tabloid flavor. Taking the Heisenberg
Principle to the nth degree, Ben is always acutely aware of the
camera eye and often kills accordingly. The crew -- Belvaux and
Bonzel playing less compassionate versions of themselves, plus
a variety of sound men (Ben goes through as many sound guys as
Spinal Tap went through drummers) -- gets pulled deeper into
Ben's exploits, aiding and abetting him.
When an armed victim shoots
the first sound man and a grief-maddened Remy kicks the gunman's
corpse, Ben holds him back, not wanting him to start down the
path of violence. (It may only be that Ben needs Remy where he
is, as a chronicler of Ben's actions; he doesn't need competition.)
Yet a line has been crossed, and Remy crosses another when he
holds down a little boy's flailing legs so that Ben can suffocate
him; finally, Ben and the crew, drunk and rowdy, show up at the
house of a naked, copulating couple, and what follows is harsh
enough to get itself deleted from the early American prints of
the film (it was later reinstated, though is missing from "unrated"
edited versions on VHS). The scene manages to outdo the gang-rape
in A Clockwork Orange, which was also hideous to watch
but at least did not feature festive sparklers. The aftermath
is just about the last word in morning-after disgust.
The standard line among those
unimpressed by Man Bites Dog is that "it isn't that
well-made," which makes you wonder how so many critics could
miss the point so completely. Its very amateurishness gives it
a sharper edge (did these same critics turn their noses up at
the overrated Blair Witch for the same reason?); though
you're never quite convinced you're watching an actual documentary,
you're not really supposed to be. (The most realistic passages
of the film belong to Ben's mother and grandparents, played by
Poelvoorde's actual mother and grandparents, who reportedly had
no idea they were appearing in a violent mockumentary; they were
told that a film crew was creating a "day in the life"
study of Poelvoorde.) By the time Ben and his crew run into a
rival serial killer and his camera crew, the movie becomes
a mirror watching a mirror, beyond all concerns of "reality."
A subplot involving Italian
thugs out for revenge on Ben is there only to bring the proceedings
to a conclusive and abrupt halt; it also allows for some of the
darkest humor when Ben's loved ones start turning up with large
objects lodged in their asses. The camera registers this affront
to Ben as dispassionately as it recorded Ben's own affronts to
other human beings no less loved by family. This part of the
film is almost never commented on, and effectively makes Man
Bites Dog more than the merciless dreg-fest it's often painted
as. We're prompted to pity Ben (and his deceased loved one) the
first time, but we laugh the second time because of Ben's choice
of words in describing it, and why not? We laughed before when
he was killing. Don't trust reviewers who came late to
Man Bites Dog on DVD after having seen all the later media
satires that say so little so loudly. This is an original, a
stark and (sorry) biting work far more complex, both stylistically
and thematically, than first meets the eye. As Ben himself says,
he is cinema, or at least an aspect of it: conscienceless,
devouring, repugnant yet riveting. So is the movie.
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