Review of Man Bites Dog (1992) by Ivan D — 25 Apr 2010

Unlike the earlier film I reviewed "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer", "Man Bites Dog" made the killings even much more trivial, treating the violence as small leisure activities by the killer himself, and the pretentious conversations about art, music and more as the center of his daily life.

Along with its distinct film technique, which is very admired in the cinema community, the film also has able to elaborate a major yet subtle satire about media itself, as its obsessions with sensationalized killings and the people responsible also brings forth its subsequent doom.

Carefully balanced and shown in the film, the crew started as naive filmmakers, then slowly, with poetic interludes, drawn into the very thing they're all trying to exploit. The killer Ben(great performance by Benoit Poelvoorde), with that unflinching charisma reminiscent of Godard's street-wise criminal anti-heroes, started with cool, unbroken streak of murders and larcenies, ended with a poem recital, with the whole crew tumbling down with him into his decadent private world.