Sorry, we hate to break it to y’all but if you’ve been looking forward to seeing Eddie Redmayne in his groundbreaking “The Danish Girl” performance, well, your hopes have just been dashed.
Film distributor United International Pictures (UIP) Malaysia representative Michelle Ng told MMO that the awards-tipped movie has been banned here. She was quoted as saying, “Yes. The decision was made by the censorship board … You may have to refer to the Censorship Board for further details as that was their decision.”
“The Danish Girl” is a British biographical drama film directed by Tom Hooper, based on the 2000 fictional novel of the same name by David Ebershoff and loosely inspired by the lives of Danish painters Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener.
The plot is as follows:
“Set in early 1920s, a Danish artist named Gerda Wegener asks her husband Einar Wegener to stand in for a female model and paints him as a female. When the painting gained popularity, Einar starts to develop an interest in female appearance and begins to change his physical appearance into a female and calls himself Lili Elbe. Lili then becomes the first ever recipient of male to female sex reassignment surgery, and this causes a massive change in Gerda and Lili’s marriage. Einar’s childhood friend, Hans Axgil, shows up and forms a complex love triangle with the couple.”
The film stars Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe, one of the first known recipients of sex reassignment surgery, Alicia Vikander as Gerda Wegener, Matthias Schoenaerts as Hans Axgil, and Ben Whishaw as Henrik.
This recent ban adds to a long list of movies that have also been banned in the country including “Zoolander” (2001), “Brokeback Mountain” (2005), “The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013), and “Fifty Shades of Grey” (2015).
Malaysia is not the first country to ban “The Danish Girl” though. According to THR, “The Danish Girl”, for which both Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander have been nominated for BAFTA awards, has also been banned in Qatar Oman, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates after failing to pass censors.
“The Danish Girl” has also been nominated for 4 Academy Awards including “Best Actor” and “Best Supporting Actress”. The film debuted at the Venice Film Festival before it was released in theatres on 27th November 2015.
For more information, visit the movie’s official Facebook page.
Sources: MMO, THR, cinema.com.my / Featured image from The Guardian.
