#vincent tavier

[genevieveetguy]

La foire agricole, Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar (2019)

[genevieveetguy]

Adoration, Fabrice du Welz (2019)

[sesiondemadrugada]

Alléluia (Fabrice Du Welz, 2014).

[a-collection-of-ramblings]

MAN BITES DOG (1992)

Directed by: Remy Belvaux, Andre Bonzel, & Benoit Poelvoorde

Written by: Remy Belvaux, Andre Bonzel, Benoit Poelvoorde, & Vincent Tavier

Starring: Benoit Poelvoorde

In hindsight this probably isn’t the most appropriate film to showcase when we’re so close to the holidays.

This is another instance where I heard of this film thanks to the kind folks at Criterion Collection. While the mockumentary is nothing new by 1992, the subject matter for this film is quite unique. Following a serial killer for a reality show (before reality TV caught on) seems quaint now a days but for 1992 it was a wild idea. This movie can get pretty damn brutal at points and, in one instance, I had to fast forward through a particular scene because it was too unsettling to watch. With the scene I am referring to, and others, most of the brutality takes a long time to get going or the directors linger on it for way too long to make it awkward to watch. It should make it effective then to make us hate Ben, the focus of this show.

And yet you can’t really hate Ben because he is pretty much a normal guy. Don’t get the wrong idea; he’s a nutjob and what he does in this movie is appalling. But Benoit Poelvoorde plays Ben up as a nice, somewhat sophisticated person to hang around with and listen too. It also must be stated that the crew that follows him are ineptly stupid and when they start getting involved more with Ben the worst of their personality comes out. That is ultimately the whole point of this movie in that while Ben might be a sociopathic killer, the real monsters are the film crew because they lose their inhibitions along the way (while Ben never had any to begin with). So while I wouldn’t recommend this to go into your Christmas viewing after It’s A Wonderful Life, it is a very strong mockumentary in what is now a very overcrowded genre.