Borat - second thoughts

[Michael Tee]

I decided it was just as stupid to avoid a film because it was over-hyped as to avoid it because of bad reviews.  See for yourself and decide.  So I took the missus last night, or she took me, and wound up as by far the oldest people in an audience that seemed exclusively 22 and younger.

It was pretty funny.  Gross, as expected, but I've seen worse.  Overall, it was sweet and sad, a kind of note I never really expected, a happy ending and a flattering but true-to-life portrait of the American people - - their friendliness, openness, hospitality but also their insularity and hair-trigger belligerence.  The acting was pretty good, camerawork so-so, but the film was supposed to be a documentary produced by a couple of Kazakhs, so maybe that's why.

Only one couple walked out.  It's worth seeing.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I thought it was worth seeing, but as you said, it is gross in parts, and a ways from technically excellent, as US films almost always are (logical camera work, intelligible dialogue, etc.) Being as I saw it with a woman and her young daughter, I would have preferred to have waited to rent it. There is nothing that requires a large screen, and hate to have been responsible for paying the way for the 8-year old daughter. I told her mother it was not a proper film for a little kid, but she insisted.

I don't think I am likely to go out with her again. Not for that, but she is an egotist and a user. Don't need that.

[Plane]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/471333p-396655c.html

All of which proves to me that we are living in a paradise of tolerance, feminism and even homoerotic acceptance our hippie forebears could only dream of.

This, however, is not what most culture critics have been seeing in the film. Nope. They say that Borat - actually, the actor Sacha Baron Cohen playing a horny, hopeless Kazakh journalist - "dupes his interview subjects into revealing their ignorance and/or prejudices" - the Chicago Tribune; "paints a portrait of the American subconscious that would give you nightmares" - Newsweek; reveals "the symbolic heart of America - a place where intolerance is worn, increasingly, with pride" - Entertainment Weekly (always the first place to turn for moral instruction).

With a few rabid exceptions, however, most of the people Cohen encounters are not only decent and polite, they have internalized the lessons of every single rights movement of the past half-century.

[Michael Tee]

<<With a few rabid exceptions, however, most of the people Cohen encounters are not only decent and polite, they have internalized the lessons of every single rights movement of the past half-century.>>

My thoughts exactly.  I thought on the whole it was a very flattering (and true-to-life) portrait of the American people.  I just can't understand comments like that <<portrait of the American subconscious that would give you nightmares">> and the like.  That's just bullshit.

"internalized the lessons" was a good way of putting it, too.  Only in some cases the internalization wasn't all that deep.  But it was pleasantly surprising to see that there had been any internalization at all.

[Plane]

I wonder how randomly the subjects were chosen.

I have to suppose that a lot of film was discarded because the response was not sufficiently funny.

The interview with Bob Barr and the interview with Alan Keys were both very short , did these guys realise that they were being spoofed, or did they just produce too little humor?


Also I heard later that Borat went into a camp meeting of Pentacostal Christians , this must have been after I left the theater , this would be my people , how did he fit with them?

[Michael Tee]

<<Also I heard later that Borat went into a camp meeting of Pentacostal Christians , this must have been after I left the theater , this would be my people , how did he fit with them?>>

They gave him hope where he had only despair.  Put him back on his feet emotionally.  Personally, I thought it was one of the weakest points in the film.  But it was in keeping with the underlying upbeat nature of the film as a whole.

[Plane]

<<Also I heard later that Borat went into a camp meeting of Pentacostal Christians , this must have been after I left the theater , this would be my people , how did he fit with them?>>

They gave him hope where he had only despair.  Put him back on his feet emotionally.  Personally, I thought it was one of the weakest points in the film.  But it was in keeping with the underlying upbeat nature of the film as a whole.

This seems like the normal intent of a group of Penticostals when given a chance to witness to a newbie.

If this was as unscripted as the rest I ought to be glad it turned out so.


ON the other hand Borat was entirely a commercial enterprise , he was spoofing t he christians the same as all the rest.