An immigrant sees America
Movies
Despite all the rhetoric about illegal aliens that currently
pollutes political discourse and fuels the careers of pompous mediocrities, the
most threatening foreign visitor to America is not some poor Mexican swimming
the Rio Grande or scaling George Bush’s ridiculous fence, but a weird guy in a
bad suit from the great nation of Kazakhstan. He is the ubiquitous BoratSagdiyev, a character
created by the daringly original English comedian Sacha
Baron Cohen, known to viewers of cable television as the host of Da Ali G Show. As he tells us, speaking
directly into the camera, Borat is a television
reporter who journeys to this country to conduct what he calls in the subtitle
“cultural learnings,” which turns out to be the
funniest educational excursion ever filmed.
The movie begins in Borat’s native
Kazakhstan,
where he shows the audience his squalid village, the hovel he calls home, and
some of the local citizenry, including the town rapist, his envious neighbor,
and his own sister, who proudly displays a cup she won for being the fourth
best prostitute in the country. He introduces some of the village’s charming
customs, like the Running of the Jews — at the end of the movie the locals
have converted to Christianity, which means they replace the festival with the
crucifixion of an elderly resident — initiating the outrageous parodies of
anti-Semitism that pervade the film.
When Borat and his producer Azamat (Ken Davitian) arrive in New York, the
outrageousness multiplies exponentially. He tries to kiss strange men on the
street, washes his face in his hotel room toilet and his underwear in Central Park, and accidentally releases his chicken (who
lives in his suitcase) on the subway. After seeing the pneumatic Pamela
Anderson on television, he persuades his producer to accompany him to California in an ancient
ice cream truck so that he can marry her, a trek that
resembles some bizarre combination of the traditional road flick with a
decidedly maniacal version of Don Quixote.
Like some insane Huckleberry Finn, Borat
travels through the South and West, confounding and shocking everyone he meets,
sometimes in ways either unprintable or simply impossible to describe. At a
rodeo he persuades the master of ceremonies to allow him to sing the national
anthem; after calling for George Bush to drink the blood of Arabs, to the loud
cheers of the crowd, he sings the Kazakh anthem, to the tune of “The Star
Spangled Banner,” which elicits quite another reaction. Unable to buy a gun, he
purchases a bear for protection, and the beast roars menacingly at other cars
on the highway and frightens kids who flock to the ice cream truck expecting
something rather different.
Borat’s travels reveal the degree
to which Cohen pushes the boundaries of behavior and humor far beyond anything
hitherto shown on film. Much of his dialogue and behavior lean heavily on the
sexually indecent and scatological, so that his apparently innocent conversations
with the people he meets rapidly descend into some truly amazing and weirdly
innocent obscenity.
The movie parodies many subjects at many levels, including
the television documentary it imitates — the people Borat
encounters are nonactors, including some well known
politicians, who apparently believe him to be as real as themselves, and they
are completely taken in by the deadpan earnestness of their interviewer.
Judging by its production values, the often grainy look of videotape mingled
with ordinary film, and its limited cast, the major cost of the picture must
have been the payment for releases for all those folks who trusted him and whom
he fooled, and reimbursements for all the damage he causes in places like an
antique shop and a couple of hotel rooms that he virtually destroys.
The demented literalism of his speech, the remarkable
consistency of his characterization, the Dadaist subversion of all his subjects, and his demonstrated willingness to break all the
rules sometimes distract from the sheer brilliance of his parody and his
performance. Quite frankly, I cannot recall ever laughing so hard at a movie
that I almost lost consciousness: Borat, which I believe will be a huge success, really must
be seen to be believed. It is that good.
Borat: Cultural Learnings
of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (R), directed
by Larry Charles, is now playing at Canandaigua, Geneseo, Greece
Ridge, Henrietta, Pittsford, and Tinseltown.
This article appears in Nov 8-14, 2006.
