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Tarfumes.com - Man Bites Dog
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List Price: $19.98
Our Price: $49.97
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Fox Lorber
Starring: Rémy Belvaux, Jean-Marc Chenut, Olivier Cotica, Rachel Deman, Jenny Drye
Directed By: Rémy Belvaux, Benoît Poelvoorde
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9781879482708
Format: Black & White
ISBN: 1879482703
Label: Fox Lorber
Manufacturer: Fox Lorber
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Fox Lorber
Release Date: 1997-10-14
Running Time: 96
Studio: Fox Lorber
Theatrical Release Date: 1993-01-15
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Editorial Reviews:
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This Belgian satire (in French with English subtitles) is dark, dark, dark--but also right on the money in its sly sendup of the media's fascination with violence and its complicity therein. This mock documentary has a trio of filmmakers shooting a cinéma vérité feature about a garrulous serial killer who lets the film crew follow him around as he selects victims and then dispatches them. But at what point does filmmaking become participation? These hapless documentarians soon find out as their subject eventually pulls them into his world, including a gun battle with a rival film crew and their own criminal star. Gruesomely hilarious, with a deadpan wit that's hard to resist. --Marshall Fine
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: I'll buy from these guys again
Comment: Had no problems and will be glad to buy from these guys again. transaction went through fine and product showed up earlier than expected.
As far as the movie, it's an off beat disturbing movie. Shot in a documentary French auteur style. Some may like it some will not but it's definitely different.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A comedy not to be taken lightly...
Comment: Mockumentary's are often hilarious exaggerations of human obsessions presented in a way that makes us laugh at ourselves and our own pathetic indulgences. Wonderful films like `Best in Show' or `Drop Dead Gorgeous' are magnificent examples of exploitation of harmless activities that we as a culture take too seriously.
`C'est Arrive Pres de Chez Vous' (translated `It Happened in Your Neighborhood' yet strangely named `Man Bites Dog') does not fit into that mold.
On the outset this film is laced with a black comedy both intriguing and inviting, yet the end result is one of repulsion and guilt. `C'est Arrive Pres de Chez Vous' strikes a nerve because it's not merely exposing harmless guilty pleasures; it is calling out our society's sick attraction to violence and suffering. It's like a comedic version of Kubrick's masterpiece `A Clockwork Orange'; a film that makes light of violence in order to add weight to the subject; a film that gives an air of triviality in order to shock the audience into realizing that they don't take this as seriously as they should. I remember watching `A Clockwork Orange' with open mouth and straining eyes and by the time `C'est Arrive Pres de Chez Vous' was through I was in the very same predicament.
The film follows a camera crew as they follow a serial killer by the name of Ben. Ben murders and robs with reckless abandon and is actually flattered that this group of young men wants to document his lifestyle. His reactions and methods are criminal yet presented in a manner that elicits laughs and smiles from the audience. This succeeds in creating an air within the audience, one of lighthearted glee as they think they are watching just another comedy. But they are not, and as the film tapers to a close and the violence gets more extreme, the audience suddenly realizes that their enjoyment in this film is further proving the point of the filmmakers; that our society is so calloused to the sadism surrounding us that it rarely shocks us.
We realize that we shouldn't be finding any of this `funny' and the fact that we do sickens us.
The performances by the entire cast are flawless, but no one deserves more credit than Benoit Poelvoorde who plays the serial killer Ben. His performance is flamboyant and charismatic and convincing; completely dedicated to the material and essential to the desired effect of the film on the audience; us.
In the end I feel that `C'est Arrive Pres de Chez Vous' is an extremely important film. This film reminds me of the feelings derived from reading Bret Easton Ellis' phenomenal novel `American Psycho', a novel that exposed our cultures calloused condition flawlessly. `C'est Arrive Pres de Chez Vous' is not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach but it is monumentally important for it calls to attention a growing problem, a problem that will only continue to get bigger.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Violent Satire
Comment: Man Bites Dog is an odd movie about a camera crew who follows around a serial killer and his friends. It's filmed in black and white and it's one of those films that breaks the fourth wall.. It's like they took a video camera and started filming a mental case and the audience gets to watch as he goes from nice guy to killer. Around his family hes nice and when alone and around his friends hes psycho.
As far as it being disturbing its about a 7-8 out of 10. Some parts were deeply disturbing, others funny. It's hard to imagine how anything could be funny in a movie like this but they managed to mix disturbing with humor. One scene will have you laughing, another will have you shaking your head.
I really couldn't say what I liked or didnt like about this film. It didn't strike me as anything great yet it wasn't terrible. If it was anything it was definitely out of the norm.
The whole thing is in French. Do not get this if you have a weak stomach. Its very graphic.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The most lighthearted portrayal of sadism I've ever seen
Comment: This was stunning in two directions. There's the activities taking place - mucho dark stuff - and the fact that a film crew is documenting it and even assisting in the action. Normally, I don't watch foreign films because the subtitles frustrate me. Glad I changed my mind this one time. I highly enjoyed this flick. But if you're a delicate soul, you won't like it. It's brutally immoral.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Dog Wags Tail, Tale Wags Dog, Dog Barfs
Comment: Should you be seized by the desire to watch this film, have your friends lock you in a steamer trunk until the impulse passes. Many movies are merely bad, some are dreadful, but Man Bites Dog establishes a new nadir of film, it is truly the cellar beneath the basement.
Low budget, grainy B&W, staccato French with indecipherable sub-titles, a tiny cast of unknown actors who have earned their obscurity and, one hopes, will retain it, a lead character who is at once revolting and uninteresting, and a complete lack of plot and character development.
The story concerns a man who kills randomly. He does not kill for profit and he seems to take no pleasure from it. We are offered absolutely no insight into his character - which is odd, because wherever he goes he is followed by a film crew that is documenting his exploits. This bizarre idea (which in itself is not half-bad) is the film's sole gadget. The only development that occurs, if one may honor it with such a lofty term, is that gradually the film crew gets drawn into the action, helping to murder victims, bury bodies, and generally be useful. This might be slightly amusing if they weren't already complicit merely by virtue of documenting the events.
This film attempts to walk the fine line between grotesque and surreal, hard-nosed cinema verite and broad, tongue-in-cheek farce. Unfortunately, this fine line was in another part of Belgium when these self-congratulatory buffoons were putting this codswallop together. Some have even hinted at the presence of a sly layer of social criticism here, an examination of society's fixation on violence. What lovely nonsense. The makers of this film would like you to think they're that clever, but there's nothing even remotely resembling intelligence driving this project; being precious and smug is not the same as having something to say.
You can make a great a film on a tiny budget, but you need to compensate by going heavy on wit, imagination, script, innovative use of locations, terrific acting, snappy dialogue, and ideas strong enough to carry your film. Man Bites Dog has none of these qualities. The movie would have been vastly improved by killing the crew first.
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