Borat Barrels Into Town

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

The nervous-looking Eastern European man sits across from his female etiquette coach, laboriously forming English sentences.

“At a dinner party … may I show pictures of my family?” he asks.

“You have pictures of your family?” she replies in the tone of voice we reserve for foreigners and retarded people.

“Yes, many,” the man says and smilingly produces a succession of photographs featuring his 17-year-old son’s penis. “Is nice?” he asks.

Meet Borat Sagdiyev. To this woman he is a Kazakh television reporter making a documentary about America; to those in the know he’s the brainchild of British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, better known for his character, Ali G. Never one of Mr. Cohen’s more popular comedy identities, Borat was the character Mr. Cohen brought to the fore after riding Ali G into the ground, and now he’s the star of the feature-length mocumentary “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” which is about to open as a general release in theaters.

Embodying the worst aspects of the Eastern European stereotype, Borat jaunts across America, spouting his sexist and anti-Semitic beliefs to unsuspecting people as if, of course, they share his point of view. He asks a car salesman how fast his SUV needs to be going to kill a Gypsy family. He asks a rodeo cowboy why men should not kiss other men. And he eats ceremonial cheese with former Republican Congressman Bob Barr — cheese that he says made from his sister’s breast milk.

Borat’s questions aren’t what’s funny. What’s funny is that his unsuspecting targets give him answers. You need to be going about 35 to 40 mph to kill a Gypsy family, the salesman replies. The matchmaker dutifully notes that he has a religious preference for his dates. The rodeo cowboy gives him a wink and says that if “we” have our way, Americans will be allowed to lynch all the gay people. And Mr. Barr, to his credit, gamely chokes down the breast cheese.

In what passes for a story line, Borat travels to New York (“At least there are no Jews there,” his obese producer, Azamat, says), where he’ll shoot a television documentary on American culture for Kazakh TV. But when he becomes smitten with Pamela Anderson, whom he spots jiggling down the beach in a “Baywatch” rerun, he heads for California to marry her, convincing Azamat that it will be better for their documentary.

As Borat skips coast to coast, he effortlessly makes a fool of everyone he encounters along the way (the release contract offered to those appearing in the film was rumored to be vague at best). People who were hoodwinked into participating have already begun going public with their complaints, the biggest one being, “I’m not really like that.” But the brilliance of the Borat character, and the reason the movie is so funny, is because they are really like that.

At his best, Borat is able to get people to let it all out. When he’s given a lift by fraternity brothers from South Carolina, it’s pretty clear they’re savvy enough to know who Sacha Baron Cohen is. But the drunker they get the rowdier they become and finally they can’t help themselves: They begin to take Borat at face value, telling him that whites are the real minority in America and issuing cryptic, nonsensical advice about women that leaves no doubt as to how they truly regard the fairer sex.

In bite-size portions, this is hilarious, but as a movie it’s less so. The plot is horribly irritating, and whenever the storyline creaks into action it’s with all the grace of a dancer who has Robert McKee’s screenwriting bible, “Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting” nailed to his forehead. Borat’s act is predicated on the idea that we all know Mr. Cohen isn’t a racist or a sexist — he’s simply confronting people with their own stereotypes. But this doesn’t work in a movie, where there’s a need to literalize everything.

It’s one thing for Borat to pretend to be an idiot from Eastern Europe, but it’s another thing to build a Kazakh village for him to come from that gives life to those same stereotypes. Suddenly you’re not laughing at peoples’ preconceived notions being overturned, you’re being asked to find the preconceived notions themselves funny. Borat claiming his sister is the no. 1 prostitute in his village is funny; meeting an actress playing his sister is pointless and depressing. Satire is a fragile thing, and in this case the need for moviemaking to literalize everything causes it to collapse.

Despite all his provocative qualities, Borat (and, one would assume by extension, Mr. Cohen) doesn’t quite translate to America. African-Americans get a free pass. The closest Mr. Cohen comes to taking on American race relations is when he invites a “guest” to a dinner party he’s attending. Bringing a plastic bag of his own feces to the table doesn’t raise an eyebrow, but when he invites a black prostitute to come over, he’s shown the door within seconds. But that’s it — the moment’s over and never mentioned again. Later in the film we see a series of politicians speaking at an evangelical revival meeting, but, the moment just lies there like an awkward outtake from a Michael Moore documentary.

In America, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, and Jerry Seinfeld have been poking fun at Judaism for so long that most of us are pretty well vaccinated against anti-Semitism. But Mr. Cohen harps on anti-Semitism so hard that you begin to suspect his target audience is in Germany — or the very Americans who obviously don’t know they’re being skewered.

Still, in a movie-scape, where comedies have to reaffirm family values, offer a life lesson in the final reel, or use ethnic stereotypes to illustrate the gag-inducing lesson that we’re all really the same beneath our skin, “Borat” is a much-needed injection of cruelty, and for about half of its running time it truly soars. Near the end of the film, Borat engages in a nude wrestling match with the gruesomely obese Azamat. Genitals blurred, they trash their hotel room, chase each other through the halls, get trapped in an elevator with horrified tourists, and finally crash an awards dinner for insurance salesmen.

There’s no plot here, no statement about race, no anti-Semitism. It’s just an eruption of pure anarchy, a violation of good taste, and it’s one of the funniest moments in the movie. It’s a good lesson for all comedies: Spend less time making points and more time showing fat naked men wrestling, and you’ll be on the right track.

‘Borat’ makes its New York premiere tonight at the CMJ FilmFest, with an appearance by Sacha Baron Cohen (Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Columbus Avenue and 65th Street, 917-606-1908). The film makes its wide release debut on November 3.


The New York Sun

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