Comical Laughings for Americans from Glorious Intrepid Borat
Sacha Baron Cohen's feature will make you laugh 'til you puke
By Andy Klein
It's probably safe to assume that most (probably all) theaters are going to opt out of displaying the entire title of Sacha Baron Cohen's first American vehicle - Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan - in favor of the less colorful, but more easily wrangled Borat.
All the promotion for the release has had Mr. Baron Cohen appearing only in the persona of Borat, and I have to restrain myself from reviewing the film in kind. ("Who is more pathetic? This anti-Semitic troglodyte with boorish attitudes about everything? A nation that could find no better ambassador of good will? Or the audiences who greet his appalling behavior with laughter rather than condemnation?")
For those who somehow have missed the build-up, Baron Cohen - two-word last name, alphabetized under B, just like Bonham Carter - is a young British comic, whose stock-in-trade is masquerading as an idiotic journalist and interviewing real people, who ideally don't know that he's acting. In the late '90s, he developed three such characters. The best known, Ali G, is a working-class white moron (real name: Alistair Leslie Graham), who has so totally adopted his own cracked version of hip-hop-plus-rasta identity that he actually believes it. (His typical response to rejection is "Is it because I'm black?") Bruno is a flamboyantly mannered fashion reporter. And Borat is a "journalist" on the state-run TV network in Kazakhstan, who embodies all of his country's allegedly backward tendencies.
The real Kazakh government has been livid over Borat. I don't know whether there is any truth to the extreme, public anti-Semitism or the other unbelievably vile beliefs Borat presents as typically Kazakh, but I suspect that Baron Cohen picked that country mostly because the name sounds funny to English-speakers and partly because it's the biggest "obscure" -stan, far larger than Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, and better able to defend itself. Still, the Kazakh authorities are in a no-win situation: The biggest publicity they've ever received in the West is wholly defamatory, but the more they protest, the more they look like the clueless assholes they're trying to prove they're not.
In 2002, Baron Cohen made a hysterical Ali G feature, Ali G Indahouse, hugely successful in Europe but never released theatrically in the U.S. Next up is a Bruno film. But for now we've got Borat, which is one of the funniest films in years and surely the most laugh-provoking. (More on that distinction later.)
The film purports to be a documentary made for Kazakh TV, in which Borat is sent to the U.S. to learn about our culture and the secrets of our success. After giving us a brief introduction to his village (actually shot in Romania), Borat and his short, rotund, grumpy producer, Azamat (Ken Davitian), arrive in New York and begin shooting. The unflappably friendly reporter introduces himself to New Yorkers on the street, chasing after them and trying to hug them and kiss them. He manages to learn nothing from their horrified reactions.
But their itinerary takes a sudden shift when our hero spies Pamela Anderson on Baywatch and realizes that she is his soulmate. Over Azamat's objections, he insists they travel to California, not telling Azamat his real motivation. They choose to drive rather than fly, "in case the Jews repeat their attack of 9/11." (Overlook the fact that they've just flown in from Europe.) Chugging along in an ancient ice cream truck - the only vehicle they can afford - Borat manages to briefly interview former Rep. Bob Barr (R-Georgia), disrupt some local TV news shows, and sing the supposed Kazakh national anthem (to the tune of our anthem) at a rodeo.
The rodeo is one of the sequences where the line between real and staged footage gets a little blurry. Much of the movie is clearly one or the other: The adventures of Borat and Azamat with a newfound pet are obviously pure fiction; and the interview with Barr is obviously unscripted, with Barr assuming Borat to be for real. Baron Cohen's rodeo exploits made the news a while ago, when he and his crew had to make a hasty exit as the crowd started to turn ugly. A backstage interview with a well-to-do local is certainly genuine. ("In Kazakhstan, we hang homosexuals. Do you not do that here?" "Not yet," the old guy says with a twinkle in his eye, "but we're workin' on it.") But the shot of a horse keeling over - it also appears in the trailer - is (one would hope) fake.
The murkiness of the dividing line can make the viewer uncomfortable, which may well be, as with Andy Kaufman's work, half the point. When Borat finally meets his divine Pamela, did nobody tip her off? Either she's really in the dark about his upcoming "courtship" or she's a better actress than I realized. But would anyone plan this episode, which basically involves assault, without the fix being in? Borat could easily have been shot or injured by the security guys before the crew explained the joke; and, even then, he and his team would be risking some major legal action.
My decorous side would like to believe that Anderson was in on it, even as my anarchic side protests.
There is no question that I laughed as much (and as loudly) at Borat as at any film of the several thousand I've seen in my life. In fact, there were moments where I feared I might hyperventilate and pass out. (The last time I can recall being close to such painful laughter was during Robin Williams's 2002 HBO special.)
Does that make Borat the funniest movie ever?
Probably not. It's possible, even probable, that I laugh more at, say, Hot Shots! Part Deux than at Ninotchka or any other great romantic comedy. There is a certain kind of humor that provokes laughs louder, more uncontrollable, and more infectious than some other kinds that are just as funny (or funnier) in a softer way.
To be sure, in Borat, much of our laughter is signifying, "That's funny!" But, just as frequently, it's signifying, "I can't believe they're doing that!" or "Ewwwww! Gross!" or "This is cutting so close to the bone that I have to react somehow, and laughter is comforting and distancing." Certainly - and let me add that my reaction was far from unique among the viewers at my screening - I spontaneously exclaimed "Oh, my fucking God!" and "Oh, no!" more at Borat than at anything I've seen since Takashi Miike's Audition five years ago, and probably more than at any non-horror film ever. (Well, maybe early John Waters.)
There were even times when I had to cover my eyes. During a justifiably notorious scene two-thirds through - in which Borat and Azamat get into a fight while buck naked - the actors put themselves into positions so repugnant that I really don't even want to describe them. Suffice it to say that - while I generally deplore the increasing dependence on CGI in today's motion pictures - I truly want to believe, against all likelihood, that some of this sequence never took place in three-dimensional reality. I have enough nightmares already.
Published: 11/02/2006
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