Man Bites Dog is a little known dark comedy masterpiece from Belgium circa 1992. Centering around Benoit, a happy-go-lucky. live-in-the-moment serial killer, and the film crew making a documentary about him, chronicling a strange tale of murder, beer, poetry, rape and weight ratios. As Benoit takes the crew out pillaging, he shares his views on everything from the failures of modern architecture to the art world, interspersing jokes throughout, and even shares a few secrets of the “trade”. The film crew becomes more and more involved as time rolls on moving from an observational stand point to taking an active role in the murdering and dumping of bodies, and whatever other evil shenanigans Benoit falls into, even losing two members of the crew chalking it up to being an “occupational hazard”.
Probably the most impressive aspect of this movie is the duality of man statement it makes. While Benoit is an admitted serial killer, he is also the kind of guy you might want to go out and have a beer with. He is always quick with a joke and even a bit of a novice poet, stopping at one point in the movie right in the middle of chasing a guy that he is going to kill, to point out two birds and that it it mating season, then proceeding to recite a poem about them. If that isn’t class I don’t know what is.
Now it is in French, so if you don’t speak the language you’ll have to do some reading, but it is well worth it. Visually the movies is filmed in black and white and does get what is now referred to as a little “Blair witch project” at times, but it adds to making you feel like this is all really happening so I look at it as a plus. Extremely funny and very dark and foreboding at times Man Bites Dog is a must see
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