Benoît Poelvoorde, Remy Belvaux ,
André Bonzel , Jean-Marc Chenut, Alain Oppezzi, Vincent Tavier
Man Bites Dog is a Belgian faux-documentary and high-concept satire
of media violence which follows the lethal exploits of Benoit Benoit
Poelvoorde, an affable, and very talkative, serial killer. He kills
for money, and he kills for pleasure, and he talks all the while
about philosophy and the proper technique for weighing a corpse
down underwater. He is followed through his slaughter-fest by the
filmmakers, Rémy and André (the actual filmmakers, Rémy Belvaux
and André Bonzel), and the line between reporter and subject becomes
blurred pretty quickly. The filmmakers become more and more involved
in Benoit's actions, starting with the relatively innocent act of
holding a flashlight for him. Eventually, when their funding runs
out, Benoit hires them to continue making the film, and soon they
are accomplices in a gang rape. While this film has the subtlety
of a sledgehammer, its message rings true: the media tend to become
part of the stories they report upon as surely as a physicist changes
a wave by looking at it. |