Product Description: A film crew documents the activities of a charming, poetry-reciting serial killer who tells how he chooses victims, disposes of bodies, and does his work. Genre: Foreign Film - French Rating: UN Release Date: 24-SEP-2002 Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com: This Belgian satire (in French with English subtitles) is dark, dark, dark--but also right on the money in its sly sendup of the media's fascination with violence and its complicity therein. This mock documentary has a trio of filmmakers shooting a cinéma vérité feature about a garrulous serial killer who lets the film crew follow him around as he selects victims and then dispatches them. But at what point does filmmaking become participation? These hapless documentarians soon find out as their subject eventually pulls them into his world, including a gun battle with a rival film crew and their own criminal star. Gruesomely hilarious, with a deadpan wit that's hard to resist. --Marshall Fine
Man Bites Dog ^ Shot in a gritty 35mm documentary format, MAN BITES DOG is a film about making film that uses a charismatic but merciless serial killer as its central focus. An Independent film crew follows the charming Benoit through his daily activities, waxing intellectual in the spare moments between his ruthless murders. Benoit's callous attitude towards his actions and victims makes for endless moments of brilliant black comedy as he speaks openly about the killings with the same indifferent tone he uses to discuss politics or red wine. Each of the performances by the immediate and supporting cast members are 100% authentic, none of which feel staged or scripted even for a moment. This is mainly achieved by filming the actors interacting with their own friends and family on screen in natural social exchanges. Benoit is able to turn on a dime, shifting from the jovial jokester into a cold-blooded killer in seconds. The crew members themselves (who double as the cast) show their understanding of the process through every scene. Seemingly imprecise camera movements and technical errors are meticulously planned in advance to create the illusion of a bumbling group of first-time filmmakers. The rash editing style creates a jarring juxtaposition between the lighthearted scenes in which Benoit shares his personal philosophies and the brutal scenes of extreme violence and gore where he coldly shoots strangers in the head and dumps their bodies into a rock quarry. The documentary style is representative of the media filter that serves to desensitize the audience and allows the violent actions to become acceptable when told through the camera lens. Remy and his crew are able to distance themselves from the events unfolding before them by experiencing the horrors safely through the camera, just as the audience accepts the social terrors as entertainment when told through the film medium. Despite the inevitable conclusions critics will draw based on the voyeuristic depictions of violence, the creators resolve that the film is not a social commentary against violence in the media so much as it is a study of the film making process itself, with the main character and plot being inconsequential to the creative process. Preceding BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON by nearly a decade and a half, this faux documentary is as innovative and original as it is entertaining and well made. It is an important film particularly for aspiring filmmakers that can be equally enjoyed by Horror fans and non-fans alike.
-Carl Manes I Like Horror Movies
Thank you ^ Thank you, now I don't need to see this movie again for 15 years! So twisted! My stepdad loved it and it was in perfect condition and came in good time.
This is Spinal Tap for Killers ^ I was initially disturbed by the violence at the start of this film, until the killer started describing his formula for adding ballast to dead bodies to keep them from floating to the surface, and mentioned children and midgets. Midgets? Just how many midgets has this guy killed? Seeing that it was going to be a satire, I was able to unclench and go along for the ride. It turned out to be a pretty good ride, burdening me with guilt for actually laughing. I thought the humor and social commentary was actually pretty clever. The killer, with all the tact of Borat, touches on a number of social issues like racial stereotypes and homosexuality as he goes about his chosen "vocation", which he has down to a science. I think the biggest satirical jab may be directed at the filmmakers themselves, as we see the depths to which they will sink in their desperate desire to make their first film and run out of money. The killer basically becomes the producer, and the filmmakers his accomplaces. At one point they encounter another film crew following the exploits of another killer. These guys are not Auteurs filming on black and white 16mm, they are voyeurs filming on video tape. Video tape, indeed. Off with their heads! While this is probably the darkest of dark comedies that I have seen, the surreal ridiculousness of some of the scenes tempered the violence and made it a very watchable movie. I will probably rewatch it to catch some of the more subtle satire.
an outrage, and a very smart and funny one at that ^ This is a black comedy that makes just about all the other ones look just a little bit gray. As violent and ugly as it gets, however, it just about justifies itself as a surprisingly deft allegory about the nature of filmmaking-- and certain dark aspects of human nature. I suspect Hitchcock and Bunuel would have been amused, although the commentary it makes about the dark side of what it means to "watch" really is disturbing. So watch, if you can stomach it. But don't watch this with anyone you love!
Essential family viewing ^ Touching. My kids loved it. My 10 year old still talks about it to this day. Hats off to finally making something the whole family can watch!
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