Editor’s note: This is a translation of Abdulgamid’s post, which is part of the neweurasia cross-blog survey about humour in Central Asia. In keeping with the subject, the article contains words and phrases that some people may find crude and/or offensive.

Epigraph

“There’s already a sense of wonder in the growing itchiness…”

Sasha Blo in Generation P, Viktor Pelevin

Foreplay

Before relaxing into the entrancing luxury of the sweetly joyful task of deflating this indisputable masterpiece of cinematographic crap (added alliteration), permit me to quote from the most reputable, respectable and elite journal Psychologies (which is now, much to the delight of Russian readers, published in Russian), No. 10, November 2006. Please, evaluate the elegance of the syllables, the beauty of the composition. The note is entitled “A Warm Reception”:

“A small, quiet, cosy place hidden away from the hustle and bustle of the streets in a Moscow courtyard, right in the city centre. A pleasant and relaxing atmosphere, art deco style interior with floral motif on the windows and hand-crafted cutlery. Customers come here not only to enjoy wine and indulge in cheese…

Restaurant “The French Cheese Hole”

Fresh, original, enticing! A hole. A French hole. And not just some sort of chocolate hole, which would, I’m sure you’ll agree, be utterly banal and not half as eclectic. But a cheese hole… What grace, what refinement. It is immediately understood that this is not a place for just anyone, but only for experienced gourmets who can gather together in quiet and secluded place in the very centre of Moscow and in a relaxing art deco atmosphere with floral windows and hand-crafted cutlery not only enjoy wine and indulge in cheese, but also…

A whole series of television adverts about this wondrous outpost of refined pleasures immediately springs to mind:

1. Young couple, very much in love

“My dear, would you like to go to the Hole today?”
“Oh, sweetie, I’ve waited so long for you to ask me!”

2. Two macho Russian toughs meet:

“We haven’t caught up for a long time, mate.”
“Correct, Kolyan. It’s been a very long time.”
“We should catch up properly, man to man.”
“Correct, Kolyan. Catch up man to man.”
“Then as usual at 16.47.”
“Correct, Kolyan. Thirteen minutes to five.”

Voiceover: “The time and place are unchangeable. There simply aren’t many places where real men can relax and remember the good times. Only in the Hole…

The journal Psychologies also develops the theme of gourmet food on page 187: “The author of this book… is certain that culinary art is a more essential part of any nation (from the point of view of self-identification) than poetry, or, for example, architecture: the high arts are valued only by the elites, but everyone eats everyday (another alliterative addition). Talking about national dishes, “he [the author] “spices” recipes with historical references about culture and traditions. And this makes any dish… particularly tasty.”

The name of the book: “Tasty” [Vkusno!]
The surname of the author: “Slops” [Burda]

So, on the cover of the book it reads: “Tasty! Slops”

“Wot, ’s’not my fault my surname’s that?!” Whilst one cannot cannot argue with the author’s surname, only a complete idiot couldn’t work out that the title of a book should both laconically and comprehensively explain its contents. So, if a book is about food, then one should entitle it “Tasty!” and if it’s about gynaecology, then call it “Nice!” – and the author’s surname should be Wombkin [Matochkin].

“So what about “Borat”?”, asks the bemused reader suddenly, still somehow unable to get to grips with the sheer depth of the existential subliminal connection between the quotations above and the film that we’ve set out to evaluate.

Don’t panic! One must carefully read the subheadings. It said at the start that this was just the introduction. Moreover, I’ve been giving you clues – count how many times in the text the word “art” has featured. The public, as is well-known, must first be attracted, enticed, entertained, distracted, buttered up, buttered down, seduced, and then, and only then, can one completely thrust in (erhem…)! Thus we have already smoothly and elegantly arrived at the central part of our entertaining tale.

Friction

1. Tarantino as Nostradamus

Those who don’t like Tarantino may go outside for a breather. “Desperado” (the film in which Antonio Banderas goes around with a double bass case all the time) is a film that has become a eternal classic for the contemporary Russian cinematographer, because the character played by Tarantino in the course of all the action, gets ten shades of shit beaten out of him almost literally in the toilets. And this was way back in 1995! But the scale of the film’s foresight is not in this [Putin famously used a similar infamous phrase to describe how Chechen terrorists would be dealt with in 1999]. Before dying in the toilet, Tarantino manages to recount not just a joke, but a wise and philosophical fable (evidently from ancient China), which the creators of “Borat” shamelessly nicked and used as the creative concept behind their wunderkind. This is how the ancient Chinese fable (which has, of course, already become a cult classic) goes:

In a dingy bar a bloke goes up to the barman and says, “I bet you fifty dollars that I can piss into that glass there from five metres away and not a single drop will miss.” The barman, of course, agrees. So the guy whips out his dick and pisses over the barman, the bar and everything else, except the glass. The barman, laughing happily and wiping off his face, gets his fifty dollars and suddenly notices that the bloke is looking very pleased with himself. “What the hell are you grinning about, you f*ckwit?” asks the barman with confusion. “You lost the bet and your fifty dollars.”

“Well, no,” replies the bloke condescendingly, “I didn’t lose fifty dollars; I won two hundred, because I bet that guy at the back table two hundred and fifty dollars that I could piss on the barman and soak him from head to toe and he’d even be happy about it.”

Thirty seconds to reflect on this.

So this is the cult fable, the moral of which lies at the heart of the new cult film “Borat”. “We’ll bet,” said the film’s marketing guys, launching a huge advertising campaign, “that you, dear and highly-respected viewers, will clutch your sides laughing for two hours, unable to stop giggling at the sharpest jokes that are actually a satire on the culture, morals and politics of, well, you know who. And we’ll bet that you guess immediately at whom Borat is laughing and mocking. Of course, we couldn’t possible criticise them openly. But so that the hidden subtext is immediately understood, on posters advertising the film we’ll have Borat holding a flag of the appropriate country… and then, just so there are absolutely no doubts, we’ll mention the name of the country in the title of the film. Well, aren’t you clever! You yourselves have all understood what’s hidden between the lines and expressed so effervescently in Aesopian language from between Borat’s hairy buttocks. Enjoy the film, our most intelligent viewers!”

And somewhere, a year before the above-described event, the film’s creators came to the producer and said: “We’ll bet you $1,230,000 [the film’s actual budget] that we can completely and totally morally piss and crap from a great height on every single person who goes to see our masterpiece, and they’ll still laugh until they’re rolling on the floor and pay us such a huge amount of money that you’ll become very rich and we’ll become extremely famous!”

And they shook hands.

As you can see from the comments below, that’s how it all worked out. The barman, smiling happily, wipes the piss off his face, and the bloke who’s standing there smiling condescendingly gets nominated for an Oscar ™.

(Imagined) reviews:

“Vasya, a really hysterical film’s come out. It takes the piss out of the Yanks so much! Completely hysterical! I took a look at the trailer on the internet, almost crapped myself laughing!”

“A huge thank you to the creator of this marvellous film! I experienced such a flood of positive emotions! I laughed so hard for two whole hours!!! I just couldn’t stop! First I pissed myself laughing, then I shat myself and then I even threw up! It was wonderful! A true celebration for the soul! Dear Borat, thank you for the pleasure you gave me!”

“Cool film. Wicked. They don’t diss anyone ‘cept the Americans. ‘S’not like I dinnit geddit, like. ‘N so wot if they say that we drink piss and… ‘n dunno how to use the john. Like, I know they mean it’s the USAnians wot are thick. ‘S’not like I dinnit geddit, like.”

“The most wonderful example of delicate and refined satire. But this satire cannot be understood by just anybody. It is simply not in everyone’s capabilities. This is just burlesque in the finest tradition of Gargantua and Pantagruel. One shouldn’t shun it in these grounds. After all, the aim is noble – to uncover the cultural shortcomings of all mankind, regardless of nationality or race. It is a call to all thinking people on the planet: “Denounce complexes and stereotypes! Have the courage to laugh at your own shortcomings!” However, it is undoubtedly the case that the fundamental target of these sharpest of sharp jokes and sketches is American society with its incorrigible [deleted by censor].”

2. Let no-one go away offended!

“Borat” doesn’t offend, insult or humiliate anyone. From the legal point of view, at least. Everything is done (de jure) so that there can be no accusations of racism or chauvinism. Therefore Borat greets and says goodbye to his fellow villagers in Polish, talks to his sidekick in Hebrew and is answered in Armenian. Therefore the geographical names when they are shown on map are distorted almost to the point of being unrecognisable (but are nonetheless recognisable).

Therefore Pamela Anderson plays Pamela Anderson. Therefore they don’t show the blow job Pamela was filmed giving and which causes Borat to cry so pitifully when he sees it. Therefore a scene in which Borat and the patrons of a bar in America sing “the national Kazakh song”, “Throw the Jew Down the Well” in chorus isn’t shown. In the first instance the Americans are not insulted (bien sur): it is the intelligent housewife who as a member of a truly cultured and tolerant nation, explains to the Neanderthal Borat what to do with his sick bag, whilst suffering from an attack of vomiting… The audience in the stadium bellow patriotically (although possibly not approvingly) when Borat exclaims “Let George Bush suck the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq!”

The film is artless and so leaden not because it is an artistic device or directorial conceptualisation, but because it is the low budget freebie for second-rate actors and a useless director (it’s his second film overall, the first was just as shoddy but sank without trace). But the cunning producers repackaged this feeble excuse for a film as political satire.

Meanwhile the very clever and discerning viewer paid handsomely for the whole scam. “Borat” does not offend, insult or humiliate anyone – except for the audience, which, in general, doesn’t even realise. Instead they just sit there and munch popcorn.

Now is it more or less understood what a French hole, tasty slops and Borat have in common?

Even so, think for yourself and then decide whether or not to go and see it. That’s it from me.