About the film
- Directed by
- Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Benoît Poelvoorde
- Released
- August 20, 1992
- US theatrical
- January 15, 1993
- Certification
- NC-17
- Country
- Belgium
- Starring
- Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Jacqueline Poelvoorde-Pappaert, Valérie Parent
More credits
- Language
- French, Italian
- Origin
- FR
- Studios
- Les Artistes Anonymes
- Written by
- André Bonzel, Benoît Poelvoorde, Vincent Tavier, Rémy Belvaux
- Produced by
- Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Benoît Poelvoorde
- Cinematography
- André Bonzel
- Music
- Jean-Marc Chenut, Laurence Dufrene, Philippe Malempré
- Also starring
- Édith Le Merdy, Jenny Drye, Malou Madou, Willy Vandenbroeck, Nelly Pappaert
- Budget
- $33,000
- Box office
- $205,569
Three film students in Belgium wanted to know what happens when a documentary crew stops being neutral. So they made themselves the answer.
MAN BITES DOG (1992) follows Ben, a charming serial killer, as a film crew tags along recording his murders. Ben holds forth on music, poetry, and the structural weight limits of low-income housing between killings, treating each body like a footnote to his real subject, himself.
Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Benoît Poelvoorde, and Vincent Tavier wrote the film, with Belvaux, Bonzel, and Poelvoorde directing and producing it together on 16mm black and white. Bonzel shot it, Belvaux edited it, and Poelvoorde starred as Ben, with Belvaux and Bonzel appearing as Rémy and André. It won the International Critics' Prize at Cannes.
The joke sours fast. The crew stops observing and starts joining in, taking part in the killings themselves. When Ben brings them to meet his family, Poelvoorde's real parents and grandparents appear in the scene; they thought they were being filmed for a genuine documentary about their son and had no idea they were in a serial killer film. It is the only footage in the movie that actually is a documentary.
It plays as satire of true crime and media complicity, decades before either term was common shorthand. Few debuts have been this confident about how far a joke can be pushed before it stops being one.
Sources
- Benoît POELVOORDE - Festival de Cannes www.festival-cannes.com
- Man Bites Dog - The Criterion Collection www.criterion.com
- Man Bites Dog www.cinematheque.qc.ca
- MOVIE REVIEW : 'Man Bites Dog': Seductive Nature of Violence : The ragtag production allows us to cozy up to its charmin www.latimes.com
- `MAN BITES’ EYES REPORTING - `MAN BITES’ EYES REPORTING www.chicagotribune.com
- Man Bites Dog (1992) - Imprint Standard Edition - Blu-ray viavision.com.au
- Man Bites Dog (1992) — film theory and analysis: a Deleuzian reading (the powers of the false, the forger, fabulation) — sightlines.media
- Man Bites Dog (1992) gonzomagazine.co.uk
- MAN BITES DOG mondo-digital.com
- Man Bites Dog - Imprint Films Limited Edition bluray.highdefdigest.com
- Man Bites Dog (1992) Review - Found Footage Critic ftp.foundfootagecritic.com
- Man Bites Dog - Man Bites Dog www.dvdtalk.com
How to see Man Bites Dog (1992)
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CHILLING film. I’ll never forget ANY of the murders. 😮
This one has stuck with me for 30 years. The movie poster with the baby pacifier is both brilliant and terrifying too.
Never enough recognition of the obvious influence this film had on “The Blair Witch Project”(1999).
My favourite scene is where they accidentally meet the crew following another serial killer and smash their equipment for being video and not film.
One of my favorites. Unexpected storyline and black humor
Amazing film.
C’est arrive pres de chez vous.
Allez gamin c’etait pour rire!
I went to see this in the cinema with my brother for my 20th birthday. It was only on in a few screens in London, what a film, so funny and original…..dark.
Remember this one, Keith?
Still got my ticket from the Prince Charles Cinema, Cinema, Cinema … Cinema. This film has been with me 30+ years and I still watch it regularly. Groundbreaking, horrifying and funny.
Got the Criterion DVD from the local library recently 💥
It achieves an interesting contrast in how the plot and story was over the top absurd while the actual murder scenes were genuinely gruesome and unsettling
Still have it on DVD!
Brilliant, but Disturbing as Fuck.