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| Jews,
boobies and bears, oh my! Cohen in Borat. |
Jagshemash!
By Ann Morrow
Borat:
Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation
of Kazakhstan
Directed
by Larry Charles
‘We
have three problems in Kaz-akhstan,” says Borat (Sacha Baron
Cohen) during the filming of his documentary Cultural Learnings
of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,
“economic, social, and Jew.” Borat, a TV presenter, says this
with utterly sincere naivety, and during his travelogue through
America, he spends a night with a hospitable Jewish family
that results in a hilarious send-up of stereotypical Eastern
European anti- Semitism. When Borat returns to his native
soil, he finds that his fellow villagers have evolved—from
making their Jewish neighbors run a gauntlet of humiliation
to crucifying them. And so, the humor in Borat is not
at all mean or underhanded. His repulsive ignorance of civilized
behavior is inflicted equally on women, Wasps, college boys,
a Texas rodeo, Southern evangelists, New Yorkers, and America’s
often constipated notions of humor. By the end of the shoot,
Borat has unknowingly and incisively re vealed that much of
American culture is just as backward and intolerant as that
of his hometown—a place where rape and incest are acceptable
and prostitution is the easiest career option for women.
Borat is a tall, gangly nincompoop who wears a 1970s handlebar
mustache and a tacky leisure suit. A rear view of him in a
swimming thong (blithely entering water that was likely contaminated
from nuclear testing by Russia) is one of the film’s sharpest
sight gags.
Even though Cohen (aka Ali G.) is a Jewish Brit, the caricature
is so on-target with Western ideas about impoverished Slavic
countries with too many k’s in them that Cohen was threatened
with legal action by Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry. In a display
of that country’s lack of experience with publicity, the government’s
attention helped to spawn Borat the movie. And the
bottom line is: It’s very funny, and less offensive than it’s
been made out to be.
While filming in New York, Borat interviews a comedy writer
and enthusiastically tries to come up with jokes about his
retarded brother having sex with his prostitute sister. Baffled
by indoor plumbing, he washes his face in a toilet and defecates
in shrubbery. His complete nonchalance about his repulsive
behavior is more amusing than the behavior itself, and his
scatological lingo is usually clever, if not daring. And even
the more disgusting bits work within the plot’s satire, as
when he gets into a tight-focus naked wrestling match with
his obese co- producer (Ken Davitian).
Borat is disappointed to discover that American women can’t
be abducted for sex, but even the film’s misogyny has a upbeat
counterpoint: While watching Baywatch, he falls in
love with Pamela Anderson, and he and his co-producer break
their filming budget to leave New York City and travel to
California—so that Borat can propose to her, a sweetly funny
scene that ties into the ending. Cohen may be a one-note actor,
and his Slavic caricature barely varies from naďve enthusiasm,
but Borat’s desperate friendliness is a large part
of his appeal, and his eagerness to be part of every situation
(only the hate-monger frat boys repel him) allows Cohen to
get away with despicable attitudes that would seem nastier
from a self-aware character. In its own mildly depraved fashion,
Borat is more feel-good than gross-out.
Design
Error
Flushed
Away
Directed
by David Bowers and Sam Fell
If something feels a little awry in Flushed Away, it’s
because the stop-action animation technique used in the Wallace
& Gromit series by Aardman Animations here is supplanted
for the most part by the computer-generated smoothness of
Dreamworks, the folks who brought you Shrek. It’s a
transition that is not exactly seamless. The result lacks
much of the charm and inherent, visual humor of the W&G
series, but also opens up the story to new possibilities.
Imagine if Buzz Lightyear and Woody were actually pet rats,
suddenly thrust into the underworld of the sewer system, and
that they had to do what’s necessary to get back topside.
That’s basically the gist of Flushed Away, which involves
the adventures of upper-crusty pet rat Roddy St. James (Hugh
Jackman) following his, er, plunge down the loo, courtesy
of an errant “street” rat, Sid (Shane Richie). Hopelessly
out of his element, he enveigles the wily Rita (Kate Winslet)
to help him, but first they must escape the clutches of the
devious Toad (Ian McKellan) and his dimwitted henchmen (Bill
Nighy and Andy Serkis). Seems Rita stands in the way of Toad’s
wicked plan to flood the underground city—aka the sewer—that
the rats call home.
The reasons behind Toad’s desire for vengeance are delightfully
rooted in the British royal family; the movie is at its best
when it sticks to the kind of humor that was made famous in
the 1950s and ’60s, through the likes of Peter Cook and Dudley
Moore. There are innumerable stabs at the French, none of
which involve Iraq, and each of which drew, first, astonished
gasps, then belly laughs from the audience.
Unfortunately, the movie at times strays from this fertile
ground, as if the filmmakers wanted to use as many tried-and-true
motifs as possible. So, just when things are at their most
inventive and witty, out come the platitudes: There’s no place
like home; you’re nobody till somebody loves you; and so on.
Thankfully, the filmmakers refrain from trying to get the
humans to give rats a chance, in the vein of the “let’s all
get along” mentality of several recent animated movies. There’s
much to crow about with respect to Flushed Away, but
call me old-fashioned—I miss the whimsy and clumsiness imparted
by the stop action technique, and last enjoyed, quite vividly,
in Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
—Laura
Leon
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