"Man Bite Dog" is a movie that makes people feel uncomfortable, but also very exciting. I don't seem to be able to describe a movie that way, because it's rare for a movie to make me uncomfortable and excited at the same time.
Watching violent movies such as "A Clockwork Orange", "Born to Kill" and "Kill Bill" is more of excitement; while thrillers such as "Chainsaw" and "Deadly Bend" may feel uncomfortable . (But for me, who has read countless such films, there is no such thing as discomfort)
And this "man bites dog" is somewhat different. It is different because it breaks away from the plot frame of the movie, forming a new film form and subverting the film art itself.
First of all, this is a film in the form of a pseudo-documentary, but it is different from a documentary. Pseudo-documentary is actually not a new form before this movie, but the difference of "Man Biting Dog" is the feeling of making a documentary into a commercial film, packaging the murder story in a brand-new form, and forming an alternative pseudo-documentary.
In the movie, the protagonist hired a film crew to shoot a documentary for him. In front of the camera, he showed the whole process of each murder without reservation and without any secrets, and also explained different killing techniques carefully.
The film also created a miracle in Belgian film history at the time, becoming the most commercially successful Belgian film of that year. The film was also shortlisted for the Cannes Film Festival, and it caused a great sensation. The audience came to the screen name in an endless stream, and the organizers even had to use the police force to maintain order.
Secondly, its subject matter is different from the conventional killer movies. The killer movies we have seen always have a story incentive, such as mental illness, revenge, perversion, robbery, etc., and as the story progresses, the characters of the story will become stronger. Tend to be "good" and put down the butcher's knife, or extreme and tend to "evil" and be punished.
But in Man Bites Dog, none of those boxes exist! Why kill? The motive and reason for the killing of the protagonist Belot is not given in the movie, and he will not explain the background every time he kills a person, and it has no effect on the advancement of the story.
He killed everyone, pretended to be a reporter and went to an old lady's house to interview people, and then frightened the old lady with severe heart disease to death; broke the man's neck with both hands, and let the microphone get closer , so that the audience can hear the snapping sound of the broken neck; using a pillow to directly kill an innocent child; gang-raping someone else's wife in front of her husband...
According to conventional logic, when we watch a movie, we all look for the victim's life experience and the killer's motive for killing. But in "Man bites a dog", the whole movie did not make any account of the deceased.
As the movie progresses, the protagonist Beirot keeps killing people aimlessly. The cameraman and sound engineer also go to the camera to chat and drink with the protagonist and carry the corpse. At this time, as the audience, we naturally enter the participants from the bystanders. It seems that he has also become an accomplice of the killer, that is, the people who eat melons.
Furthermore, "Man Bite Dog" is a serious "murdering" movie. Murder is such a violent act, but it was made into a very serious thing.
How serious is it? For example, the serious "literati" of the protagonist Berlot, he is well versed in philosophy and aesthetic theory, and he especially loves poetry. He rambles on the camera when he kills.
What is more serious is his accomplishments in killing, and he has raised the way of killing to an artistic level. In the process of killing people, he will introduce the experience of handling corpses to the audience in front of the camera. For example, if the corpse is to be sunk to the bottom of the river, it is necessary to add rocks to the corpse. Adults need three times the weight of stones, and children need four times, dwarfs, tight texture, and only twice as much, so that the corpse can sink forever to the bottom of the water to decay.
He describes the process of killing, just like killing a pig and a chicken, it is a natural thing.
And one of the scenes that stuck with me the most was that because the riverbed dried up, all the bodies were exposed on the riverbed, and they took shovels to bury those naked bodies.
If you put your heart into watching the movie "Man Bite Dog", it will indeed cause a little discomfort to people. But after all, this is a niche movie, and it is estimated that few people will like it, and not many people will be able to watch the whole movie patiently.
Of course, this movie can't make the violence as pleasing as Kubrick, Quentin, Kitano and Woo did, but it is enough to satisfy the audience's demand for alternative violence movies.
View more about Man Bites Dog reviews
