Streaming Man Bites Dog - Criterion Collection Online
Jeudi, février 25th, 2010 |
Streaming Man Bites Dog - Criterion Collection Online.
Movie Title: Man Bites Dog - Criterion Collection Man Bites Dog - Criterion Collection is available for streaming or downloading. Click Here to Stream or Download Man Bites Dog - Criterion Collection |
The Criterion Collection brings film lovers some of the most challenging, piquant pictures ever made. National borders mean diminutive to the folks at this DVD company; they will release American films as readily as they will European cinema or documentaries about African dictators. Moreover, Criterion does not flinch from controversial films because they own controversial themes. Thanks to this company, we can readily salvage obliging versions of Paul Morrissey’s “Flesh for Frankenstein” and “Blood for Dracula” along with the ultra violent “Robocop.” I have yet to fully examine the depths of Criterion’s film catalog, but their other discs must surely be as bewitching as the titles I have viewed so far. Criterion finally released one of my approved foreign films, the independent shrimp gem entitled “C’est Come Pres de Chez Vous,” oddly translated as “Man Bites Dog.” Made in Belgium a itsy-bitsy over a decade ago, this sharp movie viciously satirizes the media and its worship for dramatic violence. Criterion not only presents this movie with a heap of extras, they also restored the film to its uncut fabricate. This is indispensable because the version I watched nearly ten years ago was missing two scenes that are arguably the most plain parts in the entire film.
Filmed entirely in the style of a dark and white documentary, “Man Bites Dog” is an often base excursion into the underground world of a sadistic thug named Benoit, a travelogue of the daily activities and random thoughts of a bloodthirsty sociopath. Most of the time he robs the elderly of their pensions, commits burglaries, drinks himself droll, or kills innocent people for no other reason than that he feels like it. In several scenes we observe Ben instructing the film crew on how to weigh down bodies so they will not float when he dumps the corpses into an abandoned rock quarry. His associates are mostly a rather seedy lot: he often visits an aging woman of questionable virtue and hangs out with an tainted boxer. Genuine feeble Benny is not above suddenly killing a pal in a fit of rage, or giving an faded woman a fatal heart attack by screaming at the top of his lungs into her face. This guy is a part of work, but what truly makes the film painful to view is how Benoit gradually lures the filmmakers into sharing his plain crimes.
In a intention, and this is the proper genius of “Man Bites Dog,” the viewer can sometimes understand why the documentarians become interested in Benoit’s shenanigans. Even as he commits the most corrupt of crimes, this hooligan is truly a charming character with many endearing traits. He often waxes philosophic about such disparate topics as architecture and poetry, has a lady friend who takes him to art galleries, and his generosity to the filmmakers chronicling his life knows no bounds. Benny is always willing to win a drink or pitch in to support pay for more film because he enjoys the company of his newfound buddies. Watching this guy play with children in the street even though he committed an dismal crime against a youth in another scene presents the documentarians, and by extension the viewer, with a lawful problem not easily resolved. Benoit does not record what Hannah Arendt referred to as the “banality of imperfect” but rather an “ambiguity of disagreeable,” and it makes pigeonholing this character at times extremely problematic. To manufacture it even more difficult for the viewer to abominate Benoit, his likeable mother and grandfather appear from time to time. But dislike him you will, especially after seeing the aftermath of a robbery in the suburbs and an encounter with a couple in an apartment after an all-night drunk. “Man Bites Dog” is a inviting film.
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Even worse, this movie is often quite humorous in the method only the blackest of comedies can do. Benoit’s overdramatic French dialogue is a yell, and many of his views on life are honest downright hysterical. You cannot serve but laugh when Benoit forces the camera crew to rebury bodies that have suddenly reappeared when the quarry goes dry. I consider one of the funniest scenes in the movie occurs when a member of the documentary crew dies as a result of Benoit’s activities and we look a member of the crew eulogize him on camera. When another filmmaker dies later in the film, this same guy performs another eulogy nearly indistinguishable from the first one. I have never felt as guilty about laughing during a film as I have with this one because I knew I unbiased should not, could not, dared not get this comic, but in the raze I objective could not abet myself from giggling over Ben’s antics.
The extras on the Criterion disc are not all that impressive. There is a film short starring the actor who played Benoit that is not that advantageous, an interview with the filmmakers that is rather short and does not snort worthy about the film, a smooth gallery, and some reviews concerning the movie. The transfer quality of the narrate is satisfactory, though, as are the subtitles for this French language film. As far as I know, we have never seen anything further from the people responsible for “Man Bites Dog.” Perhaps these guys were one hit wonders, and if so that is a darn shame. This movie is so brilliantly conceived and executed that it is difficult to imagine that whoever made it would roam into obscurity.
MBD will undoubtedly receive its equal part of lovers and loathers…this is a very hard film to sight due to its extremity of the violence. Though its scream is horrible to say the least, the overall carry out is a startlingly satirical stare at the media’s fascination at peering from the safety of our collective couches at the levels of violence that accelerate rampant in television.
An extremely tight budgeted camera crew follow a poetry spouting serial killer through the streets of Belgium in a quasi-documentary. Adhering initially to the unofficial press “rule” of not interfereing with the outcome of events, they lift the horrific details of Benoit’s bloodlust, which can only be equalled with the evident psychosis in his mind as He swings from controlled to chaotic. Ben is an spirited soul- ample, charismatic and intelligent- which provides a respectable yet disturbing disagreement to the depravity of his actions. What gives MBD that extra degree of cinematic edge is the interviews with the crew and cast (all of which coincindently utilize their accurate names in the movie, adding a greater sense of realism) …where they argue about costs, running out of equipment and film, again spurring on the documentary feel on a fictional film. When the line is crossed by the crew from neutral observers to participants, they follow the same overall repercussions as our diabolical hero.
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Based on Criterion’s history of giving graceful transfers, I will be optimistic that MBD will recieve the similar royal treatment. Past VHS copies had both the Unrated Gash (which was missing the evil scene of Ben strangling a young boy) and the Unrated Director’s Prick (aforementioned scene intact) . From what I’ve heard, the DVD will be the unedited version. This famous movie’s message has become even more potent as the inquire of for “reality” shows has risen to ludicrous levels. We may net MBD distatesful and disturbing, but are we able to observe away?
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