Travels into the Heart of America

Rating: 7/10 (12 October 2006)

This movie includes both straight comedy and a kind of candid camera (the kind where the camera is visible, but the victim is unsuspecting). The comedy is merged with the candid-camera segments so well, that if you do not pay close attention you might forget that some of the people are not acting.
Before going on, a few words about my background: most of my interactions with American people have been academic - meaning, I mostly interacted with American students and academics. As a consequence, I have come to see America as the land of political correctness and moral relativism. No doubt, mine is a biased point of view, but it's the point of view from which I saw this movie, and it must be mentioned.
So this why this movie is interesting to me: there is this Borat character who pretends to be from a country that few of us know much about; he talks to a number of Americans from different backgrounds, in different contexts, and everything he says and does is very un-PC, if not plain offensive. How are Americans going to react? are they going to be PC and tolerate Borat because of his background? or are they going to reject him because he is not PC? or are they going to reveal their own un-PC prejudices when it is safe to do so?
The answer is a bit of all three, of course; but, on the whole, the people meeting Borat make the best of a difficult situation. Usually they explain, politely but firmly, that certain things are not done in the USA. This is what the self-defined "veteran feminists" do, for instance. Of course, it helps that they are "veterans": modern Taliban-supporting American feminists would not dare to contradict a non-westerner, even if he says that women have small brains.
In a way, it is disappointing that Americans behave in such a civilized way: Borat himself is always funny, but his victims are a bit too predictable. However, sometimes we see reactions ranging from the funny to the outrageous. For example, the scene in the gun shop is a hilarious double-act, with Borat as the comic and the shopkeeper a brilliant straight-man. Better than any single scene in "Bowling for Columbine".
On the other hand, I found most offensive the attitudes of the college students who gave a ride to Borat. That's a relief: there are no more outrageous people in America than I met on campus! (update 2006.11.11: apparently the students sued the film studio.)
There is much more in this movie, but I'll just give a warning: pay attention to how New Yorkers are much more wary of physical contact than people in other parts of the country.
In conclusion, Borat put the American people to a harsh test, and they came out reasonably well, but not too boring. How would Europeans come out? I am not sure that I want to know. I take one star off the rating because the movie could have been even better with more candid-camera and less straight comedy.