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One of the highlights of this year's South by Southwest was being at the very first public screening of the upcoming Sacha Baron Cohen film Bruno, the followup to his magnificently uncomfortable Borat, where Cohen posed as a Kazakh reporter touring the United States, pranking real-life Americans into thinking they were part of a foreign documentary.
The original Bruno.
Bruno is the third of Cohen's characters created for Da Ali G Show, a flamboyant gay reporter who is "the most popular fashion correspondent in the German-speaking world, not including Germany." Like Borat, the formula behind the new movie is a fictional story populated by real people, who are unaware they are part of an elaborate prank.
Bruno's new look.
We were treated to three scenes from the unfinished movie, with a brief introduction from Cohen in between each. The plot is that Bruno is fired from his job and moves to Hollywood. In an attempt to fit in with American celebrities, he decides to adopt a black baby, Madonna-style. Because he wants to set up a fashion photo shoot for his baby (of course), the first scene is a casting session for his black baby.
In the scene, Bruno interviews a succession of real-life parents, who each would like their child featured in this fictional photo shoot. He paints a series of increasingly horrible scenarios, asking the parents if their child would be okay with each.
"Would your baby be okay with swarms of bees, wasps, and hornets?"
"Yes."
"Would your baby be okay with extremely rapid acceleration, and deafeningly loud noises?"
"That would be OK."
"Could we throw your baby from a building?"
"If that's what it takes, we can do that."
Bruno tells another mother that her 30-pound daughter is "too heavy" for the photo shoot. "Would it be possible to have her lose 10 pounds in the next week?"
"I'll do everything in my power," says the mother, looking nervous and terrified.
"How about liposuction?"
"If we're not able to get all the pounds off in the next week, we could consider it."
Bruno congratulates the winning mother, telling her they will be dressing her baby up like a Nazi pushing a Jewish baby into an oven. The mother replies that this arrangement will be fine.
Like Borat, this scene is simultaneously tragic and hilarious: what parents will do for the price of celebrity. The Hitler joke shows that Cohen is fearless in taking on every comedy taboo, but then it gets worse.
The second scene takes place on the set of a live talk show, Today with Richard Bey. The audience is made up of mostly black women, and Bruno is introduced as a "single dad." He comes out in a mesh T-shirt and leather pants, and the audience immediately turns against him.
He works the crowd into a frenzy by making a series of proclamations about how he can get any black man he wants, because his baby is a real "dick magnet." The highlight of this scene comes when they wheel his new baby onto the stage, an actual black baby wearing a cut-off T-shirt reading GAYBY. He claims he has given the baby a "traditional African name: OJ." When an enraged audience member asks where he got the baby, he says the baby was traded in Africa for an iPod.
The audience goes nuts, especially when they show some of the photos that Bruno has staged with the baby: one photo has the baby being crucified on a cross, with other babies as Roman soldiers. Another photo shows a bunch of gay men in a hot tub with the baby. "What?" defends Bruno, as half the audience storms out of the studio. "I take my baby everywhere!"
The scene ends as Richard Bey introduces a Child Services worker, who comes on stage to take the baby away. Bruno screams "Don't take my baby!" as security guards restrain him in slow-motion.
Like Borat, this scene leads you to wonder what exactly is real, and what is fake. Certainly Richard Bey had to be in on the prank, and the social worker was an actor in the film. But what about the talk show audience? While funny, many of the audience questions seemed scripted, and it was hard to believe that so many people would storm out of a TV studio in unison. This scene might have suffered from being too polished; the people in the audience need to seem real for us to believe in the meta-premise of the movie (fake character pranking real people).
The final scene takes place toward the end of the movie. Bruno grows so despondent that he breaks up with his boyfriend/assistant David. In an effort to reinvent himself, Bruno decides to become the most heterosexual man alive, now calling himself "Straight Dave." He even starts an UFC-style TV show called Straight Dave's Man-Slammin' MAX Out.
The final scene takes place in an actual arena in Arkansas, where they lured several hundred screaming fans into watching what they thought was going to be an Ultimate Fighting-style cagematch. Cohen, now heavily in disguise as "Straight Dave," a redneck with a long mullet and mustache, works up the crowd by stripping down two female assistants into bikinis.
"Faggot!" someone screams from the audience.
"Who called me a faggot?" yells Straight Dave. "I'm not a faggot! You want to come in here to fight me?" he asks, to the roar of the crowd. And then his ex-boyfriend David approaches the ring.
"Who wants to see me fight this faggot?" Bruno asks, and the two of them begin furiously wailing on each other. Bruno gets his assistant into the corner, pressing his arms against the steel cage. There is a moment where they stop and their eyes lock. Slowly, tenderly, they begin to kiss.
The crowd loses it. There is no doubt that this scene is real: the looks of shock and horror on the spectator's faces are priceless. Some grow angry and violent, and begin throwing beer and food into the cage.
The scene goes on and on, to the strains of Elton John's "Can You Feel the Love Tonight," with the two men slowly undressing each other, and rolling around in the cage, which is now incredibly filthy with beer and food. It will certainly be the highlight of the movie, in the same way the nude wrestling scene was the highlight of Borat.
The thing that struck me is that Cohen shows a more thoughtful, less flamboyant Bruno than on his TV series. I imagine this is his way of stretching the character so that Bruno can carry a feature-length movie. He's less a caricature and more a character.
Whatever the final film looks like, Bruno is sure to rival Borat for funniness, as well as pure shock value. And then, we can only pray that Cohen will go back and do a proper Ali G movie in the same style, so that the comedy trilogy will be complete.
Update: The complete Bruno trailer is now online -- do not view while eating creamed corn.
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