Review: Man Bites Dog
Director: André Bonzel, Benoît Poelvoorde
This was a bit of let down. I guess 10 years ago a violent mockumentary was still somewhat of a fresh idea. I've seen enough of these now that whatever shock value people said this was supposed to have just wasn't there for me. It still worked as a good black comedy though. There were plenty of great murder-bloopers, and just the whole nonchalant attitude the killer and film makers take to the subject cracked me up. (Hey, did I just use a French word?) I imagine it must have been influential – Natural Born Killers came a year or two later. People like to say how these movies expose the media's fascination with violence. I think they even tried to say that about Cannibal Holocaust. I don't think they're really exposing anything, obsession with violence is a cornerstone of our culture, maybe of human nature in general. Anyone not aware of that needs to wake up and smell the blood on the evening news. But maybe it's because violence is everywhere that people tend not to notice it. A movie like Man Bites Dog comes along and portrays violence in such an off-beat way that you take a step back and think of the whole idea of violence, rather than simply getting exhilarated by it like you would when watching a big budget action thriller. Maybe that really was the intention of the film makers, or maybe they just wanted to make a movie with over-the-top violence for sheer entertainment. It comes back to the ever popular exploitation or art controversy. Why can't it be both!
Reviewed by: Ravenous, added September 09 2004
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