Pas de C4 pour Daniel Daniel

The team that made the classic satire Man Bites Dog (1992) made this experimental short five years earlier. It takes the form of an extended fake trailer for a thriller about a spy called Daniel Daniel. Throughout the course of it, there are various disconnected scenes where Daniel Daniel interacts with different characters in a series of absurd episodes, amongst others, he thwarts a paedophile, saves a scout troop from a falling dinosaur skeleton and embarks on a jungle adventure with a black-faced man. The action is often accompanied by an annoying voice-over, which mimics the type that featured in trailers at the time.

At first this is a somewhat baffling and irritating short film but once it becomes clear what it is trying to do, it does become quite funny. But like most shorts it only makes a limited impression. Man Bites Dog, on the other hand, was the real deal.