Borat
Larry Charles
USA | 2006 | 82mins | 35mm | Colour

Leaving behind his mother, wife, cousin and the village rapist, Kazakhstan journalist Borat is dispatched to the United States ostensibly to report on the greatest country in the world. Once he arrives and finds himself in a New York hotel room, he comes across the television show Baywatch and in particular, Pamela Anderson’s character ‘CJ’. Falling head over heels in love, Borat discards his initial plans in favour of trekking cross-country to Los Angeles with his sidekick producer in order to meet the actress and eventually marry her.

This kick-starts a series of real-life confrontations with actual Americans where nothing is sacred and every taboo is broken. According to the New York Times, the film is in some ways reminiscent of the guerrilla humour of Andy Kaufman who baited members of the unsuspecting public with his characters, or the buffoonery of Charlie Chaplin.

Descibed by Screen Daily as a hand grenade lobbed towards the American heartland, the film has already rocked audiences with laughter at the Cannes Film Festival, where Borat himself was photographed on the beach clad simply in a neon-green thong, and also won an audience award at Michael Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival in Michigan this summer.