14 DAY TRIAL // British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen must be accustomed by now to being targeted in the media by authorities and various groups for his choice of topics for films. This happened in the past with “Borat,” and the same is happening with “Bruno,” the Austrian ambassador to the UK asking for a ban against the film, as The Sun informs.
Emil Brix believes that the “cheap” shots Cohen as Bruno takes at the country’s past, including Hitler and Josef Fritzl, are topics he should not be touching to make light of. As such, the culture minister is convinced that not only audiences here will avoid going to see the film, but that it also warrants an official ban because it portrays a country’s history in the most erroneous terms.
“It’s totally inappropriate. Everybody should speak up against that. The public will know how to react to this film.” Brinx is quoted as saying. It seems that it was Bruno’s (an eccentric Austrian fashionista) comments in the film and in subsequent media interviews that he wanted to be the most famous Austrian “since Hitler,” and that the “Austrian dream [was] to have a job, find a dungeon and raise a family there” that most upset Brinx.
However, the ambassador appears to be contradicting himself, as The Sun also points out. Aside from missing the point of the film – which is not to promote the things seen in front of the camera, but to hold a mirror to our society and draw attention to the most pressing issues – Brinx is also criticizing “Bruno” for not presenting reality as it is. At the same time, he names a director whose work, in his book, should be encouraged and promoted, but who also distorts reality.
“Oddly Brix, who arrives here next year, said films by the Austrian director Michael Haneke gave a more accurate portrayal of his country. One of Haneke’s most successful films is ‘Funny Games’ – where two psychotics lock a family in a cabin and make them ‘sadistically’ attack each other. Brix said: ‘Films by directors like these really deal with Austria’.” The Sun writes.