Newsgroup: it.arti.cinema
Titolo: 'Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan'


November 3, 2006
You will laugh at "Borat," you really will, but the
laughter will sometimes stick in your throat. This is
partially intentional -- "Borat's" fiendish brand of
subversive social commentary comes with an ironclad
shock-and-offend guarantee -- but partially not.
"Borat," or to give it its full title, "Borat: Cultural
Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of
Kazakhstan," is the brainchild of British comedian Sacha
Baron Cohen, a performer who is touched by a kind of
genius so savage it makes you consider both the very
nature of comedy and what makes us laugh.
As was evident in his British-bred HBO television series
"Da Ali G Show," Cohen has a gift for never breaking
character, for submerging himself so deeply into the
personas he creates you wonder if the man himself could
come up for air even if he wanted to.
First seen on the HBO show, Borat Sagdiyev is a
fictional television journalist from Kazakhstan, a real
country portrayed here as such a hotbed of racism,
sexism, anti-Semitism and all-around inappropriate
behavior that a Kazakh foreign ministry spokesman
plaintively said: "We understand that Borat is a kind of
satire, but it is just a pity that Mr. Cohen chose
Kazakhstan as the origin of his hero."
With his wide-eyed, pasted-on grin, thick mustache and
loping Groucho Marx gait, Borat is a profane innocent
with a will of steel, as earnest as he is devious,
someone who is so much a product of his stridently
politically incorrect culture that his actions are
intended to make us question aspects of our own.
As conceived and written by Cohen and three other
writers and directed by Larry Charles ("Seinfeld"),
"Borat" begins in its hero's dilapidated hometown of
Kuczek (actually shot in Romania). There we meet his
celebrated sister, "No. 4 prostitute in all of
Kazakhstan," and witness one of the town's most revered
customs, the Running of the Jew, in which local kids
chase an enormous papier-mâché Hebrew through the
streets of the city. And the fun is just beginning.
Most of "Borat" involves the man's journey to "the U.S.
and A." with his producer, Azamat Bagatov (Ken
Davitian). The trip begins in New York City and ends,
after Borat falls in love with Pamela Anderson via old
"Baywatch" episodes, with a cross-country drive to
California in a dilapidated ice cream van.
Along the way Borat has various misadventures, as often
as not involving masturbation and defecation, each
episode intended to be more outrageous and potentially
offensive than the last. (This is likely the first film
ever with a "Feces provided by" credit.) Among the more
memorable incidents are:
A speech at a Virginia rodeo in which Borat tells the
crowd, "We support your war of terror. May George Bush
drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq."
An encounter with a Southern bed-and-breakfast run by a
Jewish couple where Borat insists that two roaches who
invade his room are the shape-shifted owners and throws
dollar bills at the bugs to mollify them.
A jaw-dropping nude bout of no-holds-barred wrestling
between Borat and his rotund producer that goes
considerably beyond anything that can be seen on
YouTube, or anywhere else.
Because the "Borat" crew shot the interviews as if Cohen
really was a clueless Kazakh journalist, none of the
people who appear in it (except for wrestling partner
Davitian and an actress who plays a prostitute) is aware
that he or she is talking to a guerrilla comedian.
We don't laugh at all of this, but we laugh at more of
it than would seem possible, even if our laughter makes
us uncomfortable enough to wonder why. For one of the
unexpected things that seeing "Borat" underlines is that
we don't laugh only because something strikes us as
amusing. We laugh out of astonishment and disbelief, out
of embarrassment for what the people on screen are going
through, and because we simply can't figure out any
other way to respond. "Borat" takes advantage of all
these, and more.
We also laugh at situations that don't sound funny on
the page because of Cohen's powerful comic presence.
This is a very smart guy with the likability all
comedians have to have, and he is very deft at what he
does.
In addition to a taste for slapstick (watch for him
negotiating his way down the first escalator of his
life), Cohen has a remarkable knack for improvisational
response -- he's dazzling at a garage sale he stumbles
across -- that serves him here just as it did when he
was Ali G.
Again in the Ali G mode, Borat the reporter specializes
in tweaking people in power and the blindly prejudicial.
Looking especially poleaxed are a pair of pillars of the
conservative Republican establishment, former Georgia
Rep. Bob Barr and former presidential candidate Alan
Keyes. And a man at that Virginia rodeo is allowed to
hang himself with his gleefully homophobic comments.
But because Cohen is intentionally provocative, willing
to mock whoever crosses his path, he ends up baiting the
harmless and playing ordinary people for fools just
because they are gullible and had the bad luck to run
into him, and it's here that the laughter especially
sticks in your throat. The car dealer who doesn't object
when Borat makes anti-Gypsy remarks may not be a secret
racist but simply someone who decided it was a mug's
game to get further involved with an obvious lunatic.
And the Southern dining society that gets mercilessly
humiliated seems to have committed no sin worse than
earnestness, credulity and hospitality.
With his corrosive brand of take-no-prisoners humor that
scalds on contact, Cohen is the most intentionally
provocative comedian since Lenny Bruce and early Richard
Pryor, with a difference. For unlike those predecessors,
there is a mean-spiritedness, an every-man-for-himself
coldness about his humor. The one kind of laughter you
won't find in "Borat" is that which acknowledges shared
humanity. Instead, there is that pitiless staple of
reality TV, watching others humiliate themselves for our
viewing pleasure.
Gifted and funny though he is, Cohen and his love of
transgression are finally very much of and about our
time. For better or worse, we deserve each other, and we
might as well laugh.
kennet...@latimes.com
'Borat'
MPAA rating: R for pervasive, strong, crude and sexual
content, including graphic nudity, and language.
A 20th Century Fox release. Director Larry Charles.
Screenplay Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter
Baynham, Dan Mazer. Based on a story by Cohen, Baynham,
Hines, Todd Phillips. Based on a character created by
Cohen. Producers Cohen, Jay Roach. Cinematography
Anthony Hardwick, Luke Geissbuhler. Editor Craig Alpert.
Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes.
-- 
www.iaciners.org

 Kazakhstan'
Sacha Baron Cohen è un fottuto genio, credo che Borat sia la cosa che mi ha
fatto più ridere degli ultimi anni. Non è umorismo per tutti, occorre un
minimo di perversione e di cinismo per goderselo appieno. Diciamo che se
South Park vi fa sbellicare, Borat vi farà definitivamente morire.
Speriamo che esca in qualche sala in Italia, anche se ne dubito. E comunque
se lo hanno doppiato (anzichè sottotitolarlo) avrà perso un buon 30%...
-- 
emboliaschizoide.splinder.com

 South Park vi fa sbellicare, Borat vi farà definitivamente morire.
Come ti sputtanop i texani
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XCBK14kD8M
 

 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XCBK14kD8M
Sono caduto per terra dal ridere.
Ho dato biada doppia al mio mulo e gli tengo il pelo lucido, spero che
trovi la strada giusta presto.


8.3 di media su IMDB. Direi che promette bene. 

 trovi la strada giusta presto.
Eh, io sto facendo la bada anche ai torrenti, ma sarà dura.
-- 
emboliaschizoide.splinder.com

 8.3 di media su IMDB. Direi che promette bene.
dall'alto della mia ignoranza chiedo: ma quanto sono affidabili i voti 
di imdb?
al secondo posto all the time c'è "Ali della libertà": gran bel film, ma 
imho si tiene dietro dei capolavori assoluti.... 


Considerala una giuria popolare. 

 
io comunque non ci trovo niente di scandaloso in quella collocazione per 
The Shawshank Redemption.
Il film riesce ad essere emozionante come pochi altri, e questo forse 
ancora conta ancora più delle varie pecche che ci possono essere nella 
regia, nella sceneggiatura, nela recitazione.
Più che altro mi lasciano perplessi i voti così alti per la trilogia del 
Signore degli Anelli.