Brüno [Bruno] (2009)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://www.vulture.com)

Satirizing Caucasian Insecurities

Fascinating sociological experiment about the difference between people’s stated attitudes and their actual ones.

Not only a clever satire on the ethical emptiness of most Western media, but a successful skit on the pointlessness of Political Correctness and the White supremacist project that underwrites it. (Tellingly, creator Sacha Baron COHEN refers to Mel Gibson as “Der Führer”; explaining, perhaps, the latter’s non-appearance in this movie.)

The clever comedy is frequently cringe-making as it takes potshots at the usual targets. White people - as a whole - homosexual homophobes, the sexually-insecure, emotionally-shallow celebrities, xenophobes and materialistic Christians.

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Where COHEN has been so very canny is in allowing his interviewees to express their stupidity and neurosis through their own words. Not only are they fools because of what they say, but because of the fact that they say it without any apparent realization that they are being had.

The funniest stuff here is that between the overtly-masculine men whom we quickly come to realize are crypto-homosexuals. How a supposedly-loving Christian can express his self-loathing in the message ‘God Hates Fags’ with a straight face is proof of pietism not piety. Volitional ignorance and willful parochialism exacerbate the gullibility on show here along with the lack of a sense of irony that would have come from real-world experience.

COHEN is brave in many of the scenes, which often seem laden with the potential for violence that comes from confronting repressed people with themselves. Clearly, Freud was right when he claimed that we laugh at what we fear. Although the gimmick of faux interviews is starting to show signs of age, this is still funny because it is still the case that many a true word is spoken in jest.

The other obvious problem for COHEN's methodology is that as his face becomes increasingly well-known, he is less able to trick people into revealing the unhappiness inside themselves. This actually occurs when he is prevented from entering a fashion show because the organizers realize who he is and what he is trying to do. Nonetheless, they become aware of his presence too late to stop him revealing the devastating superficiality and sheer vacuity of one particular catwalk model. In this, the film also serves as a parody on the despairing need for fame in the absence of any discernible talent.

Like its predecessor, Borat, this is a surprisingly-subtle gay love story that pillories the emotionally-repressed for their ultimate message to the world: Do not love yourself or our god will smite you!

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Copyright © 2012 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.