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Rating:
Absurd, defiant, sarcastic, nonsensical, sadistic, dirty, trashy, vulgar, irregular, rebellious, hilarious, crazy and… bastard!
These are the first words that come to mind after watching this "Borat" (with its lengthy subtitle: ‘Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan’) by director Larry Charles, a sort of ramshackle and imperfect road movie, a shaken mix between the Blues Brothers, a Michael Moore-style docu-film, and the surreal exploits of Mr. Bean.
In his immigrant's Italian (the voice of Pino Insegno is splendid!) our Sacha Baron Cohen (nothing to do with the directorial brothers), the only true star of the film, warns us with his razor-sharp sarcasm:
"You Italians go to see my movie, but it contains obscene cursing and gratuitous violence and in Kazakhstan, it was severely censored, which means everyone over the age of 3 can see it!"
A film that brought a wave of madness to the 2006 cinematography, quite "tired" and wrapped up in itself, which re-energized us from the dullness we were heading towards, also thanks to the stellar results achieved at the worldwide box office (talk of taking in 250 million dollars against the 18 million spent!!).
'Borat' is a sort of Mr. Bean we said, even though ours has more rebellious and irreverent charge that makes it more akin to the involuntary comedy of Andy Kauffman (whose feats were immortalized by Milos Forman in the film 'Man on the Moon') or the comic and involuntary brilliance of a Peter Sellers with a whole dose of vulgarity and boldness unthinkable at the time.
A true stage animal, we said, where the stage, in this case, is the streets of contemporary America used as a fragile backdrop for the bizarre and overwhelming incursions of the crazy Baron Cohen, star, author, co-director, and producer of the entire film. The storyline as mentioned becomes here a mere pretext for the semi-improvised acts of our protagonist built around the flimsy plot: an uneven journalist from Kazakhstan, dazzled by the sight of Pamela Anderson in a TV movie, decides to head to California, determined to wed the siliconed bosom from Palm Beach (no longer... ).
And on this backdrop, the producers (including ours) with a small but agile film crew (only 8 elements!) delved into the recesses of American society highlighting virtues (few seem to emerge from the film), vices, psychoses and manias of the average American citizen (involved UNKNOWINGLY in the shooting, and this should be made clear at the beginning of the viewing!).
A film 50% improvised day by day and filmed with the subtle use of hidden cameras and disguised microphones (with the aid of an ice cream truck used as an operating center), capturing the astonishment and reactions of the people on the street and beyond (I repeat, unaware of everything), "swept away" by this irresistibly comic hurricane!
They will thus encounter frenzied Neo-Pentecostals, racist cowboys (nothing like our homegrown league members!), faux etiquette teachers ready to lose their temper, spaced-out nerdy students, doped-up black rappers, junk peddlers and desperate housewives for real!
A film in its own way vital and adrenaline-fueled that, albeit patched together, presents a grand parade of characters, situations, and absurd humanity, ridiculed by the grand slap-worthy face of the protagonist who manages to dodge his prey with a thousand vulgarities, anti-Semitic jokes, taunts and an audacity truly unmissable (legendary and textbook the scene of Borat's fight with his producer, completely naked, in Kamasutra situations FIRST in the room and then in a Conference Hall full of people in tuxedos… to laugh to tears!!)
A film ABSOLUTELY Not-Correct but I would even dare to say FINALLY ALIVE, a true force of nature for a cinema increasingly difficult to make and produce in this increasingly "Global" society and ever more stereotyped and standardized on narrative and aesthetic values to the tastes of an audience in turn increasingly television-oriented.
A more unique than rare case at the beginning of 2007 that so far has delivered very few masterpieces. It surely won't be this one but the path indicated by this small stubborn and courageous production, for me is the right one.
These are the first words that come to mind after watching this "Borat" (with its lengthy subtitle: ‘Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan’) by director Larry Charles, a sort of ramshackle and imperfect road movie, a shaken mix between the Blues Brothers, a Michael Moore-style docu-film, and the surreal exploits of Mr. Bean.
In his immigrant's Italian (the voice of Pino Insegno is splendid!) our Sacha Baron Cohen (nothing to do with the directorial brothers), the only true star of the film, warns us with his razor-sharp sarcasm:
"You Italians go to see my movie, but it contains obscene cursing and gratuitous violence and in Kazakhstan, it was severely censored, which means everyone over the age of 3 can see it!"
A film that brought a wave of madness to the 2006 cinematography, quite "tired" and wrapped up in itself, which re-energized us from the dullness we were heading towards, also thanks to the stellar results achieved at the worldwide box office (talk of taking in 250 million dollars against the 18 million spent!!).
'Borat' is a sort of Mr. Bean we said, even though ours has more rebellious and irreverent charge that makes it more akin to the involuntary comedy of Andy Kauffman (whose feats were immortalized by Milos Forman in the film 'Man on the Moon') or the comic and involuntary brilliance of a Peter Sellers with a whole dose of vulgarity and boldness unthinkable at the time.
A true stage animal, we said, where the stage, in this case, is the streets of contemporary America used as a fragile backdrop for the bizarre and overwhelming incursions of the crazy Baron Cohen, star, author, co-director, and producer of the entire film. The storyline as mentioned becomes here a mere pretext for the semi-improvised acts of our protagonist built around the flimsy plot: an uneven journalist from Kazakhstan, dazzled by the sight of Pamela Anderson in a TV movie, decides to head to California, determined to wed the siliconed bosom from Palm Beach (no longer... ).
And on this backdrop, the producers (including ours) with a small but agile film crew (only 8 elements!) delved into the recesses of American society highlighting virtues (few seem to emerge from the film), vices, psychoses and manias of the average American citizen (involved UNKNOWINGLY in the shooting, and this should be made clear at the beginning of the viewing!).
A film 50% improvised day by day and filmed with the subtle use of hidden cameras and disguised microphones (with the aid of an ice cream truck used as an operating center), capturing the astonishment and reactions of the people on the street and beyond (I repeat, unaware of everything), "swept away" by this irresistibly comic hurricane!
They will thus encounter frenzied Neo-Pentecostals, racist cowboys (nothing like our homegrown league members!), faux etiquette teachers ready to lose their temper, spaced-out nerdy students, doped-up black rappers, junk peddlers and desperate housewives for real!
A film in its own way vital and adrenaline-fueled that, albeit patched together, presents a grand parade of characters, situations, and absurd humanity, ridiculed by the grand slap-worthy face of the protagonist who manages to dodge his prey with a thousand vulgarities, anti-Semitic jokes, taunts and an audacity truly unmissable (legendary and textbook the scene of Borat's fight with his producer, completely naked, in Kamasutra situations FIRST in the room and then in a Conference Hall full of people in tuxedos… to laugh to tears!!)
A film ABSOLUTELY Not-Correct but I would even dare to say FINALLY ALIVE, a true force of nature for a cinema increasingly difficult to make and produce in this increasingly "Global" society and ever more stereotyped and standardized on narrative and aesthetic values to the tastes of an audience in turn increasingly television-oriented.
A more unique than rare case at the beginning of 2007 that so far has delivered very few masterpieces. It surely won't be this one but the path indicated by this small stubborn and courageous production, for me is the right one.
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