Borat Sagdiyev shuffles uncomfortably in his polyester grey (not black) suit, his eyes flitting around the camera before pleading: “Come see my movie film, if not success, I will be execute…” he promptly brandishes a worried yet innocent smile through a thick black moustache. Ostensibly, Sacha Baron Cohen; British comedian and creator of Borat, suffered a similar predicament in creating a big-screen version of his earnest yet deeply bigoted comedy Kazakhistani journalist Borat, or to give the film’s full title; ‘Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan’.
For those unfamiliar with Cohen’s own brand of scatological / contemptuous / politically sheathed mockumentary characters, the premise is simple: create a character so outrageously prejudiced / ignorant / idiotic and ridiculous and have them interview people who, although less obvious, are potentially similar. The beauty of the comedy comes either through the unaware interviewees agreeing with anything (however offensive) a man with a microphone and camera will say, or in the other instance, having the fictional interviewer challenge the beliefs of the interviewee so stalwartly, it forces them into expressing their true opinions unguardedly. Either way, the ridiculous interviewer, be him a wannabe gangster from Staines, an anti-semitic reporter from Kazakhstan, or a flamboyant homosexual fashion reporter from Austria; either way, the reporter often appears to be the most customary and wholesome. Looking past the film’s occasional goat-fucking at sexy-time, it’s all very political.
In order to reach these often gasp-worthy, often brilliant, nearly always hilarious heights, Sacha Baron Cohen’s verbal performance and script often strays a thousand or so miles from decorum and as such Borat makes uncomfortable viewing (he points out that Kuçzeki town mechanic is also the town’s abortionist) but most obstinately, and perhaps the underpinning focus of the film is Cohen’s vilification of America’s homophobic and anti-semitic tendencies; the actor himself coming from a middle-class Jewish family and writing his University dissertation on the Jewish involvement in the American Civil Rights movement, focusing mainly on the 1964 murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Yet Borat’s views, however astonishingly racist, are always potrayed as shockingly risqué comedy, there’s a depiction of a supposed Kuçzeki tradition of the ‘Running of the Jew’, a village festival where persons are dressed in stereotypical and offensive Jewish garb and promptly chased out of town. The ‘She-Jew’ even lays an egg, which is promptly kicked-in by the children of the village. Lovely. The set up later allows Borat to enter a Southern American gun store and ask the attendant; “Which would be the best gun for killing a Jew?” the attendant barely flinches before offering him a selection of semi-automatic weaponry. But, of course, the store will not sell guns to foreigners. Ho ho ho.
Cohen and his co-writers have learned much from the mistake that was Ali G: Indahouse, instead of removing the fictional character from the real world and his liaises with bemused ordinary folk and placing the character into a fictional world - duly confiscating the actual point of the humour, Borat skilfully entwines extremely bold unscripted comedy scenes with the main story threads of the film; Borat’s journalistic (and spiritual?) journey across America, his bewilderment with their customs and hostilities (there’s a nice Midnight Cowboy homage), his undertaking to marry Pamela Andersons (sic) and his eventual catharsis.
Despite the obvious, and perhaps founded accusations of extreme ill-taste, and the upset the character has caused in his wake (his appearance on an American television show led to a few firings) Borat exceeds in almost every area. When it’s funny (which is almost constantly) it is stomach-haemorrhagingly funny, when it is offensive, it is ohmychristcanhesaythat? offensive, but surprisingly, the film even manages to deliver as a damn good road movie, and through Borat’s misguided innocence, it can even be touching. There can be few actors / comedians / persons who have the stones to put himself in the situations he does, and it’s testament only to Cohen’s verbal and phycial comedy that he can get away with the things he does without his victims becoming aware or violent towards him.
The most noteworthy element of the film is it’s function as a societal showcase that never lets the political edge overshadow the comedy. Cohen manages to expose America’s ‘Vanilla-faced’ pin-stripped and briefcased minions as those more willing to be belligerent or throw a punch at strangers than those typically portrayed as dangerous or violent, i.e. black male youths. It’s apparent that Sacha Baron Cohen is as brave, as bold, as intelligent, as radical, and as coarse as anyone you’ll ever meet, and he’s raised the bar for situation comedy. Cohen and his producer's gamble to make a feature film on such a risky and potentially volatile subject seems to have paid off, and any person willing to have a fat-man’s sweating anus and testicles placed onto their face is clearly willing to suffer for his art. As a sign off, Borat has shown that if America dislikes anyone more than foreigners or Jews, it’s the homosexuals. Bring on Bruno.