Don’t expect Kazakhs to laugh at ‘Borat’

LONDON — It’s a sure-fire way to generate publicity for a new movie.

Poke fun at a little-known country that has a determined, if not exactly far, diplomatic reach.

That’s what British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen (aka the blunt tough-talking “Ali G”) has done with his latest starring vehicle.

Opening on Nov. 3 in the United States and Britain, “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” follows the hijinks of Borat Sagdiyev, a fictional Kazakh journalist imbued with unabashed and sometimes endearing politically incorrect values. 

The $17 million film bills itself as a documentary tracing Borat’s journey from the vast Central Asian nation (in this case, Romania doubles as Kazakhstan) to New York and then across America to Los Angeles. 

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For 84 minutes, the movie chugs along, its narrative driven by unscripted interaction between Borat and real people in real situations, producing much hilarity and, even more, controversy. 

Much of the tasteless comedy derives from Borat’s outrageous assumptions about women (“woman have a smaller brain than a man”); Jews (Borat files a TV report on the age-old Kazakh tradition, “The Running of the Jew”); and gays (“homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hats” in Kazakhstan).

Baron Cohen’s outlandish portrayal as a blundering country bumpkin has aggrieved Kazakhstan’s government, and officials have responded with equal measures of indignation and efficiency. 

Counter-offensive
In September, as the film won rave reviews at the Toronto Film Festival, the government launched a media offensive to counter the unflattering portrayal; the campaign included a four-page supplement in the New York Times and television commercials on the BBC and CNN.

Kazakhstan — a country slightly more than twice the size of Texas whose chief value to the U.S. government is its cooperation in fighting terrorism — has also splashed out $40 million on a film in an attempt to restore some of its luster.

“Nomad,” which has been bringing in healthy returns at the Russian box office since early September, is said to show off the country in a much more different light — patriotic, glorious, majestic. The plot centers around a young Kazakh hero defeating Mongol hordes in the 18^th century.

The diplomatic fracas has fueled the film’s buzz, especially as Baron Cohen has demonstrated a flair for capitalizing on the Kazakh government’s outrage.  In a series of smartly crafted public appearances, with the actor donning an unwashed gray suit as Borat, he has taken to the streets in gonzo-style marketing blitzes, turning up at film festivals, awards ceremonies, even in front of the White House.

Enough to distract the Beltway media
Late in September, Borat even upstaged Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s state visit to the United States. As Nazarbayev prepared to meet President Bush, Borat held a mock press conference outside the Kazakh embassy in D.C.  Before a twittering Washington press corps, he announced Nazarbayev was visiting America to promote his film.

And in a riposte to the Kazakh government’s publicity counter-attack, he went on to denounce their advertisements claiming Kazakhstan treats women equally or tolerates all religions as “disgusting fabrications” perpetuated by “evil nitwits” in neighboring rival Uzbekistan. The throng of television cameras then trailed after him as he attempted to present a bewildered White House security guard with a movie screening invitation for Bush.

The film has inspired plenty of chatter in the Beltway.  Not only did rumors circulate that Nazarbayev planned to discuss the controversial movie with Bush during his trip to D.C., media pundits no less exalted than Maureen Dowd invoked Borat’s spirit in her weekly column while nonprofit groups like The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) urged caution over Borat’s anti-Semitism.

In a statement, the ADL said the movie “has raised anew concerns among some in the Jewish community about the character's notoriously boastful expressions of anti-Semitism and stereotyping of others.” The group’s statement continued that while the organization understood the filmmakers did not intend to offend anyone with the movie, it was concerned “that the audience may not always be sophisticated enough to get the joke.”

It appears that some in Kazakhstan do not want to take chances that Kazakh viewers will get the joke. The country’s largest movie chain, Otau Cinema, has banned the film. A company official was quoted in a trade journal as calling the movie “offensive, a complete lie and nonsense.”

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