Man Bites Dog
Trying to describe the moments in Man Bites Dog that make me laugh is a great way to lose friends. I had heard about this notorious film for years. Finally sitting down to watch it I was struck by how prescient it was. It was not the first mockumentary/found-footage film. Cannibal Holocaust predates it back by 12 years. Both films make statements about violence and our cultural desensitization to it, especially in the media. My biggest issue with Cannibal is its moral inconsistency and hypocrisy. I respect how ahead of its time the film was, but it loses the moral high ground by showing real animals being butchered on screen. Man Bites Dog does not suffer from this same problem.
There is a fine line when it comes to satirizing violence. It is easy to tip over that line into exploitation territory. Look at Grand Theft Auto 4, a game where the main character Niko has a traumatic history with death after his experiences in the Yugoslav wars. This creates turmoil within him as he is pushed into carrying out violence in the game’s story. On the surface, a character feeling torn about his horrible decisions creates tension and drama. The problem with being in an open world video game is it gives you the freedom to do anything you want. You can gun down and run over hundreds of people while Niko cracks jokes. That for me completely nullifies the character’s emotional torment because it tries to make a statement about the horrors of his brutal world while giving you the option to indulge in depravity without consequence.
One of the few filmmakers who can simultaneously balance hedonistic bloodshed with satire is Paul Verhoeven. Starship Troopers has outrageous amounts of mayhem and gore. Those scenes are interspersed with military propaganda shorts that set the stage for how these seemingly sympathetic characters belong to a fascist society. It is one of the most sarcastic films ever made. He has a rare ability to satisfy the action hero wish fulfillment fantasies while showcasing how absurd everything is. His films can be enjoyed on a surface level by those craving over-the-top action and by people looking for more substance. They lean so far over the line of exploitation that they loop back around to farce.
Man Bites Dog does is not as ridiculous as Verhoeven’s work, yet it does walk a similar fine line. The film is about a serial killer, Ben (Benoît Poelvoorde), who is being followed by a documentary crew led by director Remy (Rémy Belvaux), and cameraman Andre, (André Bonzel). The film was co-directed by Poelvoorde, Belvaux, and Bonzel. They also co-wrote the film with Vincent Tavier who plays one of the sound guys. What’s especially impressive is this was a student film. They showcase a sense of style and knowledge of the craft that far exceeds most other student films I have seen. Having the directors in the film play characters that share their names was a clever way to add an extra level of immersion. Initially, the camera crew are just there to document the serial killer Ben’s escapades. As the film progresses, they become directly involved in the atrocities unfolding.
Ben is a charming albeit narcissistic man. He talks about art, food, and relationships with an affable air. He is quite different from the theatrical killers often found in Hollywood films. What makes him so unnerving is how he could be anybody on the street. Somebody you talk to today at a restaurant could be a Ben. He is likable when needed and terrifying when he snaps into killer mode. Benoît Poelvoorde’s fantastic performance anchors the character and makes him feel real. His conversations with the crew are the kind of banter you would see any group of friends have. The film never delves into why Ben became this monster. We are presented with the man and his actions without narrative context because none is required. There are interactions with his family, but at no point do we gain any insight into Ben’s motivations.
Man Bites Dog is especially eerie to watch in 2023. Despite the film being Belgian, it is just as relevant, if not more so, to a modern American audience. We have become oversaturated with images of cruelty in the media. There are so many mass shootings that it has become almost impossible to keep track. This cycle of violence is perpetuated by the news media, which often focuses more on the killer’s motivations and backstory than the victims. A mentally unstable person, seeing the recognition shooters get, follows their lead, thinking they’ll get the attention they’ve been deprived of. Seeing Ben murder countless people; many times, with a firearm in public has an added sting today.
His backstory and motivations for killing people don’t matter. It is more about the illusion of objectivity the camera crew creates. Can you really stand back from the subject you are filming when you are giving them the spotlight? The camera crew receives limited development. We never know why they decided to make this documentary and how they even met Ben. They become audience surrogates, viewing what is happening with a sense of awe. In a typical Hollywood film, they would question what they are doing and maybe even try to convince Ben to change his ways. Here, no matter how depraved Ben gets, they never stop filming. There are a couple of moments where the director Remy becomes aware of how awful the situation is becoming, but those are quickly sidelined when he goes back to filming. Their interactions with Ben are upbeat and have a sense of camaraderie. This gradually erodes as the camera crew are dragged further into the nightmare. Their scenes of participation in Ben’s crimes are among the film’s most disturbing moments.
The film’s plot does lean into a conventional narrative towards the end when Ben starts to face the consequences of his killings. At one point, he is attacked by a group of assassins for whom we are only given vague explanations. I may be overanalyzing, but I think that change in direction was done on purpose to play with the idea of how the media and Hollywood tend to turn monsters into sympathetic anti-heroes. By shifting into the kind of story a more mainstream film would embrace and turning Ben into a figure who expresses anguish as he sees how his actions have directly impacted those closest to him indulges in the tropes that the film itself satirizes. This highlights their inherent absurdity, much like what Verhoeven does. I may be way off in my analysis there. Perhaps the filmmakers did not intend that at the time but watching it from a current perspective made it feel like the 3rd act was a deliberate subversion.
Despite how grim that all sounds, Man Bites Dog can be quite funny in the darkest possible way. Ben’s blunt dialogue detailing the differences between hiding the bodies of adults versus children and little people is delivered in such a matter-of-fact way it becomes comical. He talks about disposing of bodies like a hobbyist discusses their model airplanes. The running gag of sound guys getting killed provoked the biggest laugh from me. The film messes with the audience by desensitizing us to his crimes, only to shock us again by having him make horrifically racist statements. This makes us think “Oh no, that’s a terrible thing to say! I’m shocked, mass murder is fine, but racism is a step too far!” Then, you remind yourself he literally just strangled a woman and later smothers a child to death. Maybe he isn’t such a nice guy after all. His actions are a tad more heinous than his words.
Man Bites Dog is not an easy film to sit through. It may not be as violent as other films, but the documentary style and the blunt savagery can make it rather grueling. If you are okay with a challenging film that goes out of its way to make you uncomfortable, then take a chance on this one, if only to see how ahead of its time it was. Look at the rampant popularity of serial killer documentaries today. That alone shows how this film knew years ago how progressively more desensitized we would become to on-screen horrors. Heinous people have always existed and will never go away; however today there is a never-ending exposure to on-screen barbarism and cruelty thanks to how easy it is to access. If you think Man Bites Dog is tame by today’s standards, then you are proving the film’s point.
