Brüno
2009 · Directed by Larry Charles
Original language: English
- comedy
The story
Flamboyantly gay Austrian television reporter Bruno stirs up trouble with unsuspecting guests and large crowds through brutally frank interviews and painfully hilarious public displays of homosexuality.
What it’s like
Handheld, close and jittery, the camera lurches through airports, pool parties, and crowded arenas with the bright, flat look of cheap television: harsh overhead light, saturated costume colours, and no pretence of polish. Scenes are staged as set-pieces that cut quickly between a deadpan host and bewildered strangers, with a bouncy, brassy pop-and-stab score that cues the joke before the reaction lands. The mood is cringing, sharp and loud, a mockumentary that keeps you wincing and laughing in the same breath. Its intensity is high and explicit: frequent crude sexual humour, nudity, graphic gay and fetish imagery, strong profanity, and many scenes of public humiliation and rage, with some real physical scuffles and a few alarming moments of violence. Nothing here is gentle. It suits a late-night watch with friends who enjoy provocation, and it is aimed at viewers who like satire that pushes past comfort to expose prejudice, celebrity vanity and the awkwardness of public life.
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