Man Bites Dog - Criterion Collection (1993)

Filmed entirely in the style of a black and white documentary, "Man Bites Dog" is an often outrageous excursion into the underground world of a sadistic thug named Benoit, a travelogue of the daily activities and random thoughts of a bloodthirsty sociopath. Most of the time he robs the elderly of their pensions, commits burglaries, drinks himself silly, or kills innocent people for no other reason than that he feels like it. In several scenes we see Ben instructing the film crew on how to weigh down bodies so they will not float when he dumps the corpses into an abandoned rock quarry. His associates are mostly a rather seedy lot: he often visits an aging woman of questionable virtue and hangs out with an obnoxious boxer. Good old Benny is not above suddenly killing a pal in a fit of rage, or giving an old woman a fatal heart attack by screaming at the top of his lungs into her face. This guy is a piece of work, but what truly makes the film painful to watch is how Benoit gradually lures the filmmakers into sharing his gruesome crimes.

In a way, and this is the real genius of "Man Bites Dog," the viewer can sometimes understand why the documentarians become involved in Benoit's shenanigans. Even as he commits the most despicable of crimes, this hooligan is truly a charming character with many endearing traits. He often waxes philosophic about such disparate topics as architecture and poetry, has a lady friend who takes him to art galleries, and his generosity to the filmmakers chronicling his life knows no bounds. Benny is always willing to buy a drink or pitch in to help pay for more film because he enjoys the company of his newfound buddies. Watching this guy play with children in the street even though he committed an atrocious crime against a youth in another scene presents the documentarians, and by extension the viewer, with a moral quandary not easily resolved. Benoit does not represent what Hannah Arendt referred to as the "banality of evil" but rather an "ambiguity of evil," and it makes pigeonholing this character at times extremely problematic. To make it even more difficult for the viewer to hate Benoit, his likeable mother and grandfather appear from time to time. But abhor him you will, especially after seeing the aftermath of a robbery in the suburbs and an encounter with a couple in an apartment after an all-night drunk. "Man Bites Dog" is a challenging film.

Even worse, this movie is often quite funny in the way only the blackest of comedies can achieve. Benoit's overdramatic French dialogue is a scream, and many of his views on life are just downright hysterical. You cannot help but laugh when Benoit forces the camera crew to rebury bodies that have suddenly reappeared when the quarry goes dry. I think one of the funniest scenes in the movie occurs when a member of the documentary crew dies as a result of Benoit's activities and we see a member of the crew eulogize him on camera. When another filmmaker dies later in the film, this same guy performs another eulogy nearly indistinguishable from the first one. I have never felt as guilty about laughing during a film as I have with this one because I knew I just should not, could not, dared not find this amusing, but in the end I just could not help myself from giggling over Ben's antics.

The extras on the Criterion disc are not all that impressive. There is a film short starring the actor who played Benoit that is not that good, an interview with the filmmakers that is rather short and does not reveal much about the film, a still gallery, and some reviews concerning the movie. The transfer quality of the picture is excellent, though, as are the subtitles for this French language film. As far as I know, we have never seen anything further from the people responsible for "Man Bites Dog." Perhaps these guys were one hit wonders, and if so that is a darn shame. This movie is so brilliantly conceived and executed that it is difficult to imagine that whoever made it would slide into obscurity.

An extremely tight budgeted camera crew follow a poetry spouting serial killer through the streets of Belgium in a quasi-documentary. Adhering initially to the unofficial press "rule" of not interfereing with the outcome of events, they capture the horrific details of Benoit's bloodlust, which can only be equalled with the evident psychosis in his mind as He swings from controlled to chaotic. Ben is an interesting soul- friendly, charismatic and intelligent- which provides a pleasant yet disturbing contrast to the depravity of his actions. What gives MBD that extra degree of cinematic edge is the interviews with the crew and cast (all of which coincindently use their real names in the movie, adding a greater sense of realism)...where they argue about costs, running out of equipment and film, again spurring on the documentary feel on a fictional film. When the line is crossed by the crew from neutral observers to participants, they follow the same overall repercussions as our diabolical hero.

Based on Criterion's history of giving beautiful transfers, I will be optimistic that MBD will recieve the similar royal treatment. Past VHS copies had both the Unrated Cut (which was missing the gruesome scene of Ben strangling a young boy) and the Unrated Director's Cut (aforementioned scene intact). From what I've heard, the DVD will be the unedited version. This important movie's message has become even more potent as the demand for "reality" shows has risen to ludicrous levels. We may find MBD distatesful and disturbing, but are we able to look away?

This remains the only Belgian film I've seen, and one of the few Belgian cultural artefacts of any nature. A country that can produce a masterpiece such as this surely can't be as bad as everybody says :))