Monday, November 13, 2006
Borat
A few weeks ago when reviewing Beerfest, I wished that, if Hollywood insists on cranking out gross-out comedies, at least they could try to make creative gross-out comedies. Well, my wish has been answered. Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is truly one of the grossest films you'll ever see but it is also a rare gem of inspired comedy.You know, comedians don't get enough respect. It's a hard business that is very creatively and spiritually draining. As the old saying goes: "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard." That's why it is so impressive to see a performer like Cohen so totally dedicated to his craft.
The premise, I expect, is well known. The chameleon-like Cohen, famous for his Ali G fake interview character, uses another character, Borat, a "journalist" allegedly from Kazakhstan, to stage another round of fake interviews. (By "fake interviews", I mean that the interview subjects are not aware that the interviewer is an actor playing a character and therefore react to his outrageous questions as though there is simply a culture gap.)
It takes real courage and discipline for Cohen to pull this off effectively. He is routinely roughed up by security guards. His interview subjects frequently threaten to call the cops on him. In one scene, he offends an entire audience at a rodeo. Now, that's gutsy showmanship.
If you google up "how much is real in Borat", you will find a vigorous debate about which scenes are staged (i.e. the people appearing in the scene are in on the joke) and which ones are "real" (people in the scene not in on the joke). It is part of Cohen's great skill that it is very hard to tell the difference.
Cohen uses his comedy skill to eviscerate a wide range of subjects, including anti-Semitism, homophobia, intolerance and nationalism. At all times, the film is a hilarious study of how gullible people are when you point a camera at them.
My favourite scenes involved Borat receiving lessons from a prim-and-proper Southern etiquette coach. I won't wreck the scene for you, but it revolves around Borat asking the etiquette teacher to explain the proper way in America for a guest to ask his hostess for permission to use the "shit hole".
Another whole level of comedy (and there are so many in this movie) involves the comparison between America and Kazakhstan. Cohen's fictional version of Kazakhstan appears cartoonish, featuring a characters like the village rapist and Borat's sister the prize-winning #4 prostitute in all of Kazakhstan. But the real-life America shown in the film - including frat boys, gun shop owners and evangelist revival meetings - seems equally cartoonish.
Before I close, I want to warn readers again that this is a gross movie. It is not for kids and not for the faint-hearted. There are scenes so repellent that I wish I could blank them out of my memory.
Yet, for all of that, this movie is a true comedy masterpiece whose influence will be felt for years to come. Cohen stands head and shoulders above the current crop of very mediocre comedians and, on the strength of this piece alone, deserves to be called a comedy genius.
posted by Mentok @ 10:46 AM,
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Sunday, November 05, 2006
Flags of Our Fathers
I went through a period of a couple years during which I only read two books, over and over again. One of them was Sun Tzu's Art of War, so I can tell you with great authority that, since ancient times, military strategists have understood that the first step in mobilizing a nation to war is to win the propaganda battle for the support of your own people. That is what Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers is all about.The movie, set mainly during WWII, cuts between the battle of Iwo Jima and the propanda / war bonds drive into which the hapless Iwo Jima flag-raisers are recruited. For good measure, there are also a few scenes set in modern times of the Iwo Jima veterans in old age.
In 1944, America was on the verge of bankruptcy. The US public had grown tired of war and had started to think about ducking out of what at times seemed to be a losing battle. The bloody battle of Iwo Jima was the scene of the famous photograph of five American soldiers raising the US flag over the tiny island battlefield. This literally iconic photo served to boost the flagging morale of the American public. The military quickly capitalized on the public's love of the photo by recruiting a few of the surviving soldiers to participate in a massive war bonds drive.
At first, I was relatively non-plussed by the war scenes. In and of themselves, they add nothing more to the genre that hasn't already been done (and probably better) by Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers.
However, the war scenes serve two major functions. First, unlike Saving Private Ryan, this movie has come out while the Western world is at war, so it's useful to be reminded of just how horrible, inhuman and wasteful war is. Second, the gritty reality of the war scenes serves as a contrast to the goofy unreality of the propaganda campaign. (There is a scene of dark comedy involving ice-cream sculptures that has to be seen to be fully appreciated.)
But while the propaganda campaign often seems foolish, even to the characters, it nonetheless serves an invaluable purpose. It helps preserve in the minds of the public the black-and-white morality and heroism of the war which of course cannot really exist in this messy, shades-of-grey world of ours. Second, it raises funds for the war from a nation on the brink of economic collapse. There is a stunning scene in which the war-time spin doctor character, played by John Slatterly, lays out the blunt realities of America's crumbling finances. In one speech, the movie brilliantly succeeds in showing the moral need for a nation to lie, cheat and steal from its own people during war.
The Slatterly character stood out to me. That character is my people. Some of you who read this are also my people, so you know what I mean.
Another actor I noticed for different reasons was Neal McDonough of Band of Brothers fame. Guess what: he plays a crusty, steely-eyed army officer! Apparently his agent has never heard the term 'type-casting'.
On the whole, this movie is a phenomenal achievement in exposing the contradiction between the fictions we create about war and the horrid realities of it. At one point, one of the characters talks about war as "a waste". In the end, that is all war can be: a waste of life, potential and goods. It should always be the last, last, last resort. On the eve of Remembrance Day, I found it salutary to be reminded of that.
I should say I have a great bias about this movie. My father, who passed away a year and a half ago, was a WWII veteran who saw combat in spite of being in the Dental Corps. There is a scene in the movie, set in modern times, in which the son of a veteran sits by the hospital death bed of his father and receives his father's last words, his regrets. I've been there, literally. I'm not a tearful sort normally, but I cried all the way through that scene.
Even with this scene subtracted, this is a powerful movie. I can't recommend it strongly enough.
posted by Mentok @ 7:32 PM,
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