Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

Larry Charles’s 2006 film runs 84 minutes and the scripted spine inside it is thin: a Kazakh reporter crosses the country trying to reach Pamela Anderson. The real material is how the people he meets react on camera, and the uncomfortable part is not the nudity or the language but how often someone smiles and agrees with him. The Kazakh village scenes were shot in Glod, Romania. The American participants signed consent forms first, which is why the suits from people who said they were deceived failed; the appeals court affirmed the dismissal in 2009, leaning on wording that described a documentary style film. The abduction that closes the story is not real either; it was arranged with Anderson beforehand. Kazakhstan ran a counter campaign: a foreign ministry spokesman suggested Baron Cohen might be filling someone’s political order to belittle the country, and it bought a four page insert in The New York Times. The film opened on only 837 American screens and still finished first for the weekend. It took an adapted screenplay Oscar nomination; the award went to The Departed. A good fit if you watch knowing the target of the joke is the person opposite Borat, not Borat. Not for viewers who find it wrong to film real people kept in the dark about the project.