Ledger

The movie "Borat: Cultural

Learnings of America for Make

Benefit Glorious Nation of

Kazakhstan", or just "Borat",

caused quite different reactions

all over the world. Many people

felt hurt or want to criticize this

movie; but most want to watch it.

Anyway it doesn’t cost to forget,

that this movie is just product of

its author’s fantasy and has nothing

in common with reality.

It’s not a documentary, it’s

just a comedy. Borat Sagdiyev

is a fictional Kazakh journalist

invented by British comic actor

Sacha Baron Cohen. He travels

around the "U.S. and A." collecting

information about the

country to show it to people

in Kazakhstan. He meets feminists,

politicians and students,

then coerces them into answering

provocative questions. All these

people believe he is an actual

Kazakhstan journalist who has

no idea what the USA is. This

prankster shocks everybody with

his misunderstanding of reality.

He appears to be a real savage,

and "his country" seems to be a

country of barbarians. But really, 

the "Kazakhstan" represented in

the film has nothing in common

with the actual country. All this

is just part of Cohen’s joke.

There are few real actors in

the movie. Nearly all scenes

were unscripted and the characters

are ordinary people. By

the way, these ordinary people

weren’t glad to become actors

accidentally. The scenes showing

Borat’s home village were

filmed not in Kazakhstan, but

in one Romanian Gipsy village.

The Kazakh language is not spoken

in the film, and the people

from the so-called "Borat’s village"

are speaking Romanian.

When Borat and Azamat, his

producer, speak to each other,

Borat speaks Hebrew, Azamat

speaks Armenian. Sometimes

Borat uses some phrases from

different Slavic languages:

yak se mash? ("how are you?"

in Czech) and dzen dobriy

("good afternoon" in Polish).

The Cyrillic inscriptions used

in film are either geographical

names written with mistakes or

just random Cyrillic characters.

Soundtrack is a mix of Balkan

and Gipsy music. At the end of

the film there is a person against

the background of the Kazakh

flag. Is it Kazakhstan’s president

Nursultan Nazarbayev? No. The

person is Azerbaijan’s president

Ilham Aliyev.

Besides the people of

Kazakhstan, who accuse Sacha

Baron Cohen of creating an

unreal country, where racism and

sexism reign, there are many

others that are offended by the

movie. For example, Romanian

Gypsies, who claim that they

were lied to about his motives

claiming they were told it was a

documentary, not a feature film,

similarly the Gypsies felt they

were not paid for their participation.

Representatives of the 20th

Century Fox Company declare

that they have never said it was a

documentary and that they paid

enough. Likewise, two American

students who appeared in the

film complain they were given

alcohol and coerced into the

film, consequently they claim

their reputation has suffered.

The Kazakh people headed by

president Nursultan Nazarbayev

demonstrated their indignation,

by promising to condemn Cohen,

and closed the site (now you can

find Borat on www.borat.tv).

Cinema department of

Russian Culture Ministry can’t

ban anything. However, it has

recommended to distributors to

refrain from showing "Borat",

calling it a politically incorrect

movie. As a result we don’t have

an opportunity to see the film at

cinemas in our country.

Why was the reaction so?

Some people perceive this film

as something real or as a parody.

But it’s not a documentary, it’s

not a parody, it’s just Cohen’s

fantasy.

In my opinion, Borat and

the invented Kazakhstan can’t

be compared with Mohammed

caricatures, published in Danish

newspapers. "Borat" doesn’t

claim to be a documentary. I

don’t believe Cohen wanted to

harm Kazakhstan, and he didn’t

mean anything substantial. He

just wanted to make us laugh,

which we really did. There is

nothing wrong with wanting

to make people laugh. Besides

everybody knows that laughing

makes our lives longer and more

interesting.

"Nice", as Borat would say.