The film begins as a grainy old infomercial produced by the government of Kazakhstan, featuring Kazakh television’s greatest star, Borat Sagdiyev, as he takes us to his native village, a rural place where cars have to be drawn by horses, where they have a town rapist and farm animals share houses with their owners. We get to meet Borat’s family, including his sister, “the number four prostitute in Kazakhstan” (she has the award to prove it). Borat explains to the viewers that his country suffers from social and economic problems, as well as Jews. Let’s just say that this movie did not please the real government of Kazakhstan.
A cheerful anti-Semite
British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen introduced his character on Da Ali G Show (2003). Borat is an ignorant TV reporter, a cheerful anti-Semite and misogynist who doesn’t know any better. His command of the English language is very poor. This may not sound terribly funny on paper, and I had my doubts, but Borat won me over.
Done in the style of a “mockumentary”, the film tells the story of how Borat is sent to the U.S. to make a documentary about this grand nation. He arrives in New York together with his agent, a very obese and sullen man called Azamat Bagatov (Ken Davitian), but loses interest in his mission a bit when he happens to see an episode of Baywatch and falls in love with Pamela Anderson. Borat decides to go to California to have sex with her, and on the way he meets all kinds of people. Not actors. Real people. The reason why I had my doubts is that I’m not a fan of candid camera pranks, and I knew a lot of people in this film would be set up for ridicule.
Revealing themselves on camera
To some degree, there is a shrewd purpose behind the mischief. Borat encounters some unpleasant people, including a rodeo cowboy and some drunken college students. By acting like an ignoramus, he makes them reveal their true racist, homophobic selves on camera. It’s a trick and a trap, the results satirizing parts of American culture. Cohen exposes prejudice the way Mel Brooks used to do. He’s a skilled, genuinely funny performer. There are nice Americans throughout the film who do their best to try to help a stranger but fall victim to Cohen’s pranks. But they can always comfort themselves in the knowledge of having taken part in something substantial. Because the insane ideas behind this film results in a comedy that is far too funny to ignore, triggering laughs but also moments of discomfort.
Reminiscent of jackass, it’s irresistibly hilarious and real.
Davitian is a great companion to Cohen. When Borat walks in on the brusque agent masturbating to a picture of Anderson, a fight is on. The two men, buck naked and very hairy, start wrestling on the hotel bed and then chase each other out of the room and into a convention hall full of brokers where they continue to wrestle. Reminiscent of jackass, it’s irresistibly hilarious and real.
There are a few familiar faces in the movie. Borat interviews former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes (who gets off lightly) and there’s a scene with Anderson near the ending, which I’m sure she was in on. But who knows with this movie.
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan 2006-U.S. 82 min. Color. Produced by Sacha Baron Cohen, Jay Roach. Directed by Larry Charles. Screenplay: Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Mazer. Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat Sagdiyev), Ken Davitian (Azamat Bagatov)… Pamela Anderson.
Trivia: Todd Phillips contributed to the story and was also slated to direct, until he departed the project after having creative differences with Cohen. The police were reportedly called on Cohen 91 times during the making of the film. Followed by Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2020).
Quote: “We support your war of terror.” (Cohen to a large crowd of rodeogoers)
Golden Globe: Best Actor (Cohen).
Last word: “Even though we knew we hadn’t broken the law it doesn’t mean that you can’t get arrested and held. It’s like even though we knew there were no grounds for the lawsuits, people still continued to sue us. […] I take big risks, but I’m not reckless about it. In Sacha’s case I wanted to make sure he was not worried about anything so he could do what he wanted to do. That was very important for the performance.” (Charles, The Jewish Chronicle)