Review of Man Bites Dog (1992) by Paul P — 14 Jun 2010

Most will absolutely despise its existence, some will appreciate it and a very small sect of people will love it. Its been a little while since i've seen it and I can't decide which, so that means I love it but feel guilty about it. I've long been fascinated by serial killers. Not in the body count, how they butchered people, etc. More in the psychology of waking up one day, feeling the urge to end a human beings life and act on it.

'Man Bites Dog' is billed as dark satire, i'll call it purgatory satire for the moment. The violence in this movie is so shocking, so horrific and just comes off as so damn real that it made me uncomfortable quite a bit. The film only shows the footage the documentary team captures and edits together. That makes for some interesting thoughts on what they left out and events they tried to disgustingly play up. The performance or whatever you wanna call it by Benoit Poelvoorde is barely contained on the screen. He goes on endless rants about art, architecture and music. Then he visits his family and girlfriend and they shower him with love. And he brutally murders people and you buy it every step of the way.

The film does a wonderful job of humanizing the killer by making him charismatic and somewhat witty. Then you start to get comfortable with him and the film. He makes you laugh occasionally, some of the more obvious satire makes you chuckle. Then when you get comfortable with him(how much so is between you and your god) like you do with Malcolm McDowell in Clockwork Orange or countless other examples, the filmmakers up the savagery. Almost like they're rubbing your nose in it for accepting the violence as entertaining. I wonder what Michael Haneke thinks of this film?