Owing as much to distributor 20th Century Fox’s clandestine
screening policies as my own unfamiliarity with the character from his earliest
incarnation on Sacha Baron Cohen’s
Da Ali
G Show,
Borat was a movie that
sort of snuck up me, and boy was that the right way to see it. To not be
bothered or encumbered with broad strokes plot descriptions or even smartly
pitched, tongue-in-cheek mini-spoilers for some magazine’s fall preview issue,
to see the film fresh and let it wash over you in roughshod fashion like a
rogue wave on that first foray into the water during your annual trip to the
beach —
this was the way to
experience
Borat.
Subtitled “Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit
Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” the movie, of course, centers around
mustachioed Kazak reporter Borat Sagdiyev (Cohen), a clueless and virulently
anti-Semitic naïf who takes to America with his tubby producer Azamat Bagatov (Ken
Davitian) and “a jar of gypsy tears for protection” in order to make a
documentary about the United States for his fellow citizens. There Borat
stumbles through various rituals of socialization (obtaining a car and driver’s
license, attending a dinner party, learning the nuances of Stateside humor),
and finds himself smitten with Baywatch
pinup Pamela Anderson, whom he regards as his vestal virgin-in-waiting.
That various, quoted critical analyses of Borat can tout it in equal, honest
measure as a “fall-on-your-face, pee-in-your-pants, screaming riot” and “the
most politically influential, culturally important, shockingly tasteless and
gaspingly hilarious movie of the year” is reflective of the movie’s satirical
brilliance. The sheer range of the careening humor — only loosely,
situationally scripted, and much of it improvised, with the unwitting
participation of real folks — is impressive. Gross-out laughs at naked,
masculine cavorting and pooping in a bag are thrust uncomfortably right up
against drunken frat boys, homophobic Bible-belters and other glancing
embodiments of intolerance. Throughout it all, Cohen never drops his guard and
winks at the audience; it’s as impressive a display of acting as any this past
year, and Cohen deservingly shared in the Best Actor prize with Forest Whitaker
from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.
The film, meanwhile, is somewhat of a mirror. It’s in large
part pure anarchic reveling, yes, but it’s also quite revealing. Cohen plays
Borat as a chauvinistic, grade-A doofus, but he’s also a solicitor of
prejudices, a sort of census taker of only partially hidden judgments — showing
in the process that it’s possible to appear outwardly decent but still harbor
contemptible views and prejudices.
Even the DVD packaging extends Borat’s prankish, unblinking joke. Available in either 1.85:1
anamorphic widescreen or full screen editions, the Amray case’s cover art is
printed in slightly blurry fashion on a low-grade quality paper, and apart from
the credits, it’s entirely in Kazak. The disc itself, meanwhile, further feeds the
feeling of a homemade bootleg, with the title scrawled in faux marker on a DVD
that reads, “It is life. No. Demorez.” Only the O-ring, outer cardboard
slipcover prevents idiots everywhere from angrily phoning 20th Century Fox or
their local retailer when returning home and unwrapping their purchase; it’s
normal, and in English. (Optional English and Spanish subtitles are also
available, along with Spanish, French and Russian Dolby surround mixes to
complement the original, English language 5.1 Dolby surround audio mix.)
The disc’s supplemental extras, on the other hand, don’t
necessarily overwhelm you with quantity, though there is more than a half hour
of deleted scenes and additional material — much of it from Cohen’s in-character
publicity tour, as when he arrived at the Cannes Film Festival in a neon green
banana hammock (above). The menu screens are in garbled English, with a purposefully
low-tech production design to match the movie’s Eastern Bloc credits. Given the
instant-classic of this title, a more tricked-out special edition somewhere
down the line seems a lock, but one could reasonably expect it to be far off —
a retrospective anniversary release when Cohen is open to reflecting without
benefit of a mask. A (Movie) B (Disc)
