The first time I cracked a smile when watching Borat 2 came when I heard the name “Nazarbayev.” Nursultan Nazarbayev is the real name of Kazakhstan’s long-serving president (who was in office from 1990 to 2019) and my inner-geopolitics-nerd was proud that I got the obscure reference. The detail impressed me because Borat and its sequel might as well not be in Kazakhstan. Borat’s supposed village is in Romania and the“Kazakh” spoken by the villagers is Romanian (Borat’s “Kazakh,” meanwhile, is Hebrew).
“The Kazakhstan in the film has nothing to do with the real country,” Sacha Baron Cohen has said. “I chose Kazakhstan because it was a place that almost nobody in the U.S. knew anything about, which allowed us to create a wild, comedic, fake world.” The fictionality of Borat’s Kazakhstan is essential to Baron Cohen’s project. The aim of Borat, along with Bruno, Da Ali GS how, and, to a lesser extent, The Dictator, is to use parodic caricatures to expose the actual absurdity of real-life Americans. In working with a straw-man version of a relatively unknown country, Borat is able to play off of America’s prejudices about the second and third worlds, without meaningfully contributing to orientalism in the process.
For better or for worse, Kazakhstan (or “Kazakhstan”), ends up being at the heart of Borat 2. The film opens with a slew comedy: so much so that the film’s clever premise almost gets lost in the barrage. Premier Nazarbeyv (Dani Popescu) has noticed Donald Trump’s reputation for befriending authoritarians like Putin and Bolsonaro, and feels slighted by being left out of this exclusive club. Much like the country he leads, “poor” Nazarbayev is little known in the West, despite having just completed a twenty-nine year run as President. As for Borat, his story is set in motion when he promises to help Nazarbayev with his American standing. Specifically, he promises to present Mike Pence with a gift: Kazakhstan’s “famous” monkey (and pornstar), Johnny.
A mishap, however, leads to Borat’s daughter, Tutar (Maria Bakalova), joining him in America. Tutar proves a worthy co-star, and her presence forces Borat to question his culturally-ingrained misogyny. While Tutar does not at first question the sexist norms with which she was raised, she is spunky and goal-driven from the get-go, giving Borat (and Baron Cohen) a co-star to reckon with.
For better or for worse, Borat 2 feels a tad more scripted than the original, no doubt the result of external circumstances. Unlike in 2005, there are not many parts of America where Baron Cohen can walk around in character and expect to go unrecognized. Furthermore, the film’s production ran into the COVID era, which surely put some limitations on Borat-style, unscripted interactions.
The scriptedness of Borat 2 forces the father-dynamic into the film’s spotlight. On the one hand this dynamic has its upside. Bakalova’s charisma gives Baron Cohen a teammate in carrying out his stunts. When it comes to a certain scene involving a plastic baby and an Evangelical Christian, this makes for comedic gold. On the other hand, the relationship also adds a moralism that’s a tad too clunky. Borat’s misogyny is not a real evil, it’s a straw-man. And while it is touching to see the adorkable man learn to be a better father, it’s not as if there’s anything clever about the commentary that making women sleep in cages is bad.
Baron Cohen: Journalist
The leftist Youtuber Vaush’s reaction to the film was bittersweet. He laments America’s lack of leftist-investigative journalists, before clarifying that at very least there’s Baron Cohen. On the surface, that’s the appeal of Borat movies. They provide high-end, Family Guy-esque, humor, while also offering thought-provoking, journalistic content.
With its small and eclectic collection of scenes, however, there’s little of substance that Borat 2 exposes. The existence of Q-anon conspiracists and pro-life preachers is no secret. And while one of Borat’s strengths is exposing the bigotry of those who don’t wear it on their sleeves, on some occasions, the ordinary people Borat exposes may just be bad at reacting to the weird man promoting incendiary behavior on camera.
Baron Cohen’s comedic-journalism works best when he is able to get his characters beyond ordinary America and into centres of institutional power. In his show, Who is America?, Baron Cohen (under the guise of Israeli soldier Erran Morad), spoke with Republican politicians and an official from the National Rifle Associations, and got the same level of absurd cooperation from them, that he gets from the more random subjects in his movies. In that segment, Baron Cohen at very least exposed the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of American gun policy.
Borat 2 does try to engage with power, but it struggles to find the ideal target. From the get go the film limits its ambitions, declaring “Kazakhstan” unworthy of the great Donald Trump’s attention, and as such, Borat sets out on a quest to find Mike Pence. So far, so good. At any rate, Trump comedy is so overdone, that few exposés of Trump can truly pose meaningful challenges to power.
Logistics, however, end up forcing Pence out of the spotlight, replacing him with Rudy Giuliani. This decision unfortunately limits the film’s ability to resonate through the ages. Giuliani may count as a major-villain for the Trump-hating-MSNBC-addicted, liberals of the day, but will his name really be one that goes down in (non-New York) history?
There is, on the other hand, an argument for going after Giuliani. He’s not as over-the-top as Trump, and not a stoic Christian like Pence, making him a good archetype, for the broad, right-wing of America’s ruling class. But while, via a controversial scene with Tutar, the film does manage to sully Giuliani’s character, he doesn’t end up playing a particularly coherent role in the film’s journalistic or narrative arc.
Borat 2 begins where it ends: in Kazakhstan. And while “Kazakhstan” may be the fictional strawman, in a semi-documentary film, it is the nonetheless the work’s greatest point of resonance. Borat’s reactionary views may not be real, but they do force Baron Cohen to present himself with a unique brand of cockiness and vulnerability. Handicapped by his superficial unlikeability, Borat is forced to struggle as a father and diplomat, in ways that, despite his grotesqueness make him particularly endearing. Borat, may not be the icon Kazakhstan wanted, but he’s one that’s hard to refuse. I suppose that’s why the once offended nation is changing their tune, declaring their country a “very nice” place to visit.
© 2020. UniversalCinema Mag.