Now on DVD, Bruno still a no go

Nov 17th, 2009 | By Allan Given | Category: Home Entertainment

“Vas up? I’m Brüno!” proudly proclaims Sacha Baron Cohen’s flamboyant fashionista to open the comedian’s latest film, BRUNO. Brüno, the extravagantly gay Austrian fashion reporter, sets out to seek his fame in America, and Cohen’s film examines exactly what makes one a celebrity and satirizes those who will do anything to seek fame. Cohen as a comedian excels at pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable, continuously morphing into various personas, while challenging the definitions of comedy in the process. This is reminiscent of how the late Andy Kaufman would purposefully do things to shock his audience, constantly seeking the very fine line between that which is funny, and that which is offensive. With BRUNO though, Cohen unfortunately slips from the side of biting satirization into something that simply isn’t that funny.

I am all for comedy that incites an audience or challenges their viewpoints, but there does come a point where the humor begins to align itself with the ignorance that it is in fact trying to satirize. This becomes readily apparent in Cohen’s approach to topics such as gay marriage. While for most of the film those who are opposed to gay rights are the focus of the satire, Cohen does so while making a mockery of the same movement with his over the top and stereotypical portrayal of a gay man. For satire to be most effective, it needs to choose a side, for balancing in between the two and mocking both has the result of creating a separation between the comedian and the audience, elevating the comedian to a place above the audience while relegating the audience to that which is being satirized. No matter what one’s own personal beliefs may be on a specific cause, it seems in this case the joke is instead on the audience, for here is a film that people have paid good money to see only to have Cohen’s genitals in extreme close-up being waved across the screen at them.

Cohen though should not be dismissed at all, and this movie actually does not operate only on a base level. Cohen is an intelligent comedian, and he does allow for criticism. One of the halfway decent scenes in the movie involves Brüno testing his new show with a focus group who quickly become enraged and make comments such as, “I wanted to poke my eye out with hot needles” rather than watch Brüno. Ironically, many similar comments were overheard from the audience leaving the theatre after the film. Thus begins the blurring of the world that exists on the screen and the actual world in which we live. This inability to tell what is real and what is contrived is actually the best element of the film, and testament to Cohen’s brilliance. During a great scene involving parents trying to have their infants cast in Brüno’s photo shoot, the parents are asked progressively ridiculous questions such as, “is your child fine working with burning phosphorous” to which the celebrity hungry parents quickly respond, “Of course!” A lady in the theatre actually turned to her husband and asked if what she was seeing on screen was real. This is the mark of incredibly well developed satire.

Unfortunately though, these moments are few and far between throughout the film. Cohen is a great comedian and he throws himself into his roles with no abandon and that definitely needs to be commended. The fact of the matter is though, BRUNO is really not that funny. It does cross the line of effective satirization and ends up happily mocking groups based on their sexual orientation and their race. It plays on stereotypes, but fails to point out the ignorance of those stereotypes. The film would’ve been strengthened by really focusing in on the through story of people’s desire to do anything to achieve fame at any cost instead of trying to tackle at the same time issues as wildly diverse as relationships with the Middle East and child adoption.

In the end, BRUNO is just not worth the hype.

The DVD release of the film includes: