Jagshemash...

Rating: 9/10 (13 November 2006)

He is Borat and he is in town. If you have not heard of Borat by now, you are probably one of the people living under rocks in Uzbekistan. Borat Sagdiyev is just one of the multiple personalities that is Sacha B. Cohen. This should all be familiar from Sacha's HBO show, Da G Ali Show. If you aren't familiar and happen to be one of the rock-burdened people from Uzbekistan with access to a computer and the internet, then by all means please read on.
Borat, heir of Boltok the Rapist, is a reporter from Khazikstan, sent to the US, along with his producer - Azamat Bagatov, to document American culture (under penalty of death). For those who don't know Borat (and as a way to show the before, before the after.) we first are taken to his home town of Kuczek. As a funny sidebar, this was actually filmed in a Gypsy shanty town north of Bucharest, Romania and not in Khazakstan. As a second sidebar, the things said in the town are even funnier than the subtitles. After a long, long and circumnavigating Indiana Jones-like plane ride, we arrive at JFK.
The premise of Borat is simple. A caricature simple foreigner (anti-femanist, anti-semitic, anti-gay, sexual deviant,etc) travels to another land, with all the faux pas as comedy and critique. For the magic to work certain criteria must be present. For one, the people Borat meets must not be familiar with Borat or his country. Next, the illusion of foreign documentary must be maintained. Thirdly is the air of spontaneity. For example, Borat singing the national anthem at the rodeo could have cost Sacha his life if it had lasted a few minutes longer. The actor was evacuated from the building for fear of his safety and/or a riot. At times the humor is quite physical and quite graphic. I personally could not stop laughing while others in the theater were wincing or just plain looking away.
You know you have made something meaningful when you upset people. If no one is upset, it means that it is universally acceptable or not important enough to justify a meaningful contradiction. This movie has upset a lot of people and with good reason. Borat instigates and often the second party fills in all the graphic and quite colorful, unscripted, personal nuances. It isn't that Borat is critiquing Khazakstan or the third world (which of course he is to an extent). He is criticizing our culture through our biased perceptions of "foreigners" and through our own instigation.
The movie reminds me of John Wilmot's Sodom, in terms of open critique, except without the monarch. Sic semper tyrannis, or something. The only problem I had was with all the previews and show appearances. A lot of the jokes could be seen there prior to ever setting foot within a theater. Even with all this "hype" I highly enjoyed this movie and I recommend it to others. Now to dust off those G Ali DVDs until the next movie or until the DVD of this comes out.
Jenkui...