Opening wide this weekend, Martin McDonagh's In Bruges stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as a pair of exiled hitmen stuck in the Belgian city until it's safe for them to return home, and their sojourn is meant to be hellish in every sense of the word. Belgium has long been Europe's punchline — yes, even more so than Poland; its stolidly middle-class character and reputation as "where culture goes to nap" makes it the butt of many a joke. David Rees of Get Your War On calls the sixteenth-century seer Nostradamus "the last interesting Belgian", which insult is all the more cutting considering he was actually French; and in a memorable Monty Python sketch, game show contestants are challenged to come up with a derogatory term for Belgium, and one noteworthy entrant claims that he can't think of anything more derogatory than just "Belgian". But all kidding aside, if you actually were trapped in Bruges for a prolonged period of time, you could do a lot worse as a way to pass the time than to head for the local cinema. Belgium has, er, sprouted one of the more interesting independent film scenes in Europe recently, and as this short list of some of our favorite Belgian movies of recent years should illustrate, there's a lot more to Belgian filmmaking than just Jean-Claude Van Damme.
MAN BITES DOG (1992)
One of the first Belgian films to create a great deal of buzz outside of Europe, Man Bites Dog (the French title translates, creepily, to "It Happened in Your Neighborhood" or "He is Coming to Your House") is a postmodern twist on the serial killer narrative a good five to ten years before such things became trendy. Anticipating the self-aware American horror films of the 2000s, it follows a small documentary camera crew as they tag along with Ben (played with sinister charm by co-writer/director Benoit Poelvoorde), a disconcertingly media-savvy mass murderer. Crammed with supremely disturbing moments, shocking violence, and genuinely clever moments of humor, Man Bites Dog has held up quite well and is still better than most of the films it undoubtedly helped to inspire.
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