10 Greatest Mockumentary Films Of All Time
6. Man Bites Dog
A black comedy that tip toes into morbid the longer you stay with it. Man Bites Dog is a pseudo-documentary from Belgium that amazingly has nothing to do with waffles. This is big concept satire.
The film follows the day to day life of Ben, a charming, witty guy who looks like a shoddy waxwork of Scott Caan and enjoys killing people. He talks of art, philosophical thought and his Patrick Bateman style life takings both eruditely and passionately. It’s like if TS Eliot stopped midway through a reading of 'The Waste Land' to tell you about the molly he’d just popped.
Everything is documented. It’s intensely graphic as even in black and white the camera has a tendency to hunt out and highlight blood. But like the documentary crew you too get sucked into Ben’s hematic world as the producers and director become embroiled in the very acts they’re filming.
They help move bodies, they become accustomed to his murders and nihilism the same way they do his existential discussions over wine and a cheese board.
The film doesn’t bite dogs, rather it kicks the hornet’s nest with hobnail boots. What Ben is saying and doing doesn’t quite register immediately with the viewer, when he nonchalantly points out that ‘Once I buried two Arabs in that wall…facing Mecca of course’ the full force of his declaration isn’t felt until a few hours later when you’re lying awake in bed thinking about what you just saw.