Brokeback Mountain - International Reception

International Reception

The title of Brokeback Mountain has been translated into several other languages. Often the foreign title is literally The Secret(s) of Brokeback Mountain (how the French, Italian, Portuguese and Polish titles translate). In Canadian French, the title was translated to Souvenirs de Brokeback Mountain (Memories of Brokeback Mountain). In Hungarian, the title was Túl a barátságon (Beyond friendship). The Region 1 DVD has English, Spanish (Latin American), French (Canadian), and on some DVDs, German audio tracks.

The film also met with mixed reactions in other nations, including the People's Republic of China and Middle Eastern countries:

• According to news reports, the film has not been shown in theaters in the People's Republic of China, although it was freely available in bootleg DVD and video. The reason given by the state for not showing the film in theaters was that the anticipated audience was too small to justify this type of release. However, foreign media advanced the argument that this was merely a cover and that government hostility is better explained by opposition to the homosexuality portrayed in the film.
• Brokeback Mountain opened in theaters in Lee's native Taiwan on January 20, 2006, and Hong Kong on February 23, 2006. Such has been the media coverage of Brokeback Mountain throughout the Chinese-speaking world that the term "Brokeback" (斷背) has become synonymous with homosexuality in contemporary Chinese.
• In the Middle East, the film was a political issue. Homosexuality remains a serious crime in most Middle Eastern nations and remains a taboo subject even in the few nations where it is legal. Israel was the only country in the Middle East to show the uncensored version of the film. Lebanon was the only Arab country to show the film, but in a censored format. The film was also released in Turkey. The film was officially banned from cinema screenings in the United Arab Emirates; however, the DVD release of the film was permitted to be rented from stores such as Blockbuster Video.
• On December 8, 2008, the Italian state-owned television channel Rai Due aired a censored version of the film, removing all the scenes with homoerotic references. This led to an uproar of protests from viewers lamenting that it was impossible to follow the plot and from the Arcigay organisation, which considered it akin to an action of homophobic censorship. The state-owned television network RAI defended itself, stating that it was a mistake of the Italian film distributor, and an uncensored version of the film was later shown on March 17, 2009.