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Tuesday, 28 November 2006 14:29 |
By BILJANA KROLL
"Borat" is one of the funniest and the most outrageous movies of the year if not the decade; strongly securing a place as one to surely become a cult with a large following.
Even the full name of the film is funny: "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."
You either love the Kazakhstani character Borat Sagdiyev, played by Sacha Baron Cohen or you hate him. Based on the reviews, few people had stayed neutral after seeing the movie commercials or reading reviews about it. But none of them were able to prepare us for what Cohen, who played the title character, had prepared for us.
If
you love it, you probably were one of those people standing in a long
line on the night of the opening at Regalës Hollywood Cinema, which was
one of the 837 theaters showing it across the country.
 If you hate it,
then watching the commercials was enough for you. I have seen the movie
twice and both times I have been surprised by the way the audience
responded to it. Every time Borat would perform one of his pranks, it
was greeted with cheers, laughs and applause.
The second time
I listened to the crowd more than the movie, just to hear its reactions
to his racist and sexist jokes. The success of the movie is primarily
thanks to the college students who knew about Borat long before the
movie came out.
Borat is one of
three characters who Cohen played on HBO for several years, including
Ali G, the wannabe rapper/pimp; Bruno, the German gay fashion expert;
and Borat, the patriotic reporter from Kazakhstan.
All three
characters interacted with professionals from different fields ranging
from science and politics to religion and etiquette. Cohen is a
professional at making satirical comedy of ignorant people while
successfully staying in character the whole time. I recommend that you
watch "Da Ali G Show" DVD before watching the movie so that you
understand his offensive humor and, therefore, can enjoy the movie.
The comedy opens
in a small village in Kazakhstan, but it could be in any of the
poverty-stricken Eastern European countries, and shows Borat eagerly
introducing villagers, his angry wife and his sister, whom he
French-kisses and calls a prostitute.
In his broken
English, he explains that he is on a mission to learn more about the
"greatest country in the world" ÇƒÓ the United States of America, but
once he arrives, he becomes infatuated with Pamela Anderson. His quest
changes at that point and he sets out on a trip across the country to
find his love and shoot a documentary. He is accompanied by his
producer, Azamat Bogatov, played by Ken Davitian.
The movie is basically one offensive gag after another. Nothing is safe or sacred in the "U.S. and A.," as he calls America.
Boratës jokes
can be extremely offensive, but most in the film were done mainly to
generate hearty laughs. Some of them were done to prove some point
about Americans, others to show the ignorant nature of people in
general.
Borat is not
afraid to speak his mind about religion, patriotism and prostitution,
as well as Gypsies and Jews, whom he despises the most.
Many people were
suprised to learn that Cohen himself is Jewish, and the soundtrack
consists of songs performed by Esma Redgepova, a famous Macedonian
Gypsy; and by Goran Bregovic, a famous Serbian musician who has been
inspired by Gypsy culture and song.
Borat starts his
trip in New York, where he frightens everyone he meets on the streets
and the subway, then he has an interview with a group of feminists whom
he calls "pussycats." Then he decide to travel to California to find
his obsession, Pamela Anderson, after watching a rerun of "Baywatch" in
his hotel room.
Driving across
the country in a beat-up ice cream truck, he visits Alabama, where he
has dinner with high-society Southerners and manages to insult everyone
from the host to the priestës wife attending the dinner.
On the trip, he
also ends up singing the Kazakstani Anthem to the melody of the
American National Anthem at the Kentucky Derby, after warming up the
crowd, and showing his support for the American "War of Terror" in
Iraq. Once he gets to California, he manages to meet Anderson at a
book-signing, but his moments with her are cut short after he tries to
kidnap her in a "bridal sack" and ends up being tackled by her
bodyguards and security officials.
This movie is
not for those who are easily offended, but I recommend it to anyone who
wants to enjoy a good belly laugh for the holidays. In my opinion,
"Borat" is better than the "40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Wedding Crashers"
combined.
If you are open-minded and go see it, you will feel liberated from all the political correctness that we see on TV these days.
ï
Biljana Kroll is
a native of Macedonia, a small country on the Balkan Peninsula. She has
lived in the United States for seven years and works for the Daily
Planet.
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