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"Borat 2": How Rudy Giuliani was set up in the name of the Enlightenment

2020-10-22T17:01:03.294Z


"Borat: Follow-up Movie" starts on Friday on Amazon Prime. In advance, a scene with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani causes a stir. Otherwise the film is even more blatant than the first part.


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Borat and his daughter flee the hotel after meeting Rudolph Giuliani

Photo: Amazon

We have to spoil - that cannot be avoided if you write about the excitement that the second feature film about the Kazakh reporter Borat (played by Sacha Baron Cohen) caused before it was seen on the streaming service Amazon Prime Video from Friday is.

Because all the excitement is about a scene with Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, near the end of the film.

And to be able to assess this scene correctly, you have to know a bit about "Borat: Follow-up Movie".

Especially since the excitement about Giuliani also plays a role in the question of whether the film is a success or not.

Sacha Baron Cohen deliberately put the launch of "Borat 2" before the presidential election.

On the one hand, because many scenes are in the context of the election campaign;

in the event of Trump being voted out, they would even be obsolete.

On the other hand, because Cohen's humor method always has the goal of political enlightenment: the confrontation of real people with blatantly exaggerated fictional characters in order to illustrate the crass of reality.

So that the last viewer really notices it, the political message in this film is made very explicit at the end - with two plaques as an election call: "NOW VOTE", it says on the first, then: "OR YOU WILL BE EXECUTE" ( sic!).

Go voting.

Otherwise you will execute (sic!).

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Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat: does his humor still work?

Photo: Amazon

Giuliani and the wrong 15 year old

Basically, the point is that Borat, who with great zeal has tarnished Kazakhstan's reputation in the world, should hand over a gift to the US top management as reparation - his daughter Tutar.

She is 15 years old, lives in a cage according to Kazakh customs and admires Melania Trump - after all, she lives in a gold cage.

Tutar is played by the Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova, 24 years old.

In order to prepare Tutar for this national task, she is trained according to the supposed taste of the men around the Pussygrabber President ("They like it when women appear weak," explains an influencer) and prepared - in the tanning studio and in the beauty clinic.

After some deliberation and detours, the choice falls on the Trump confidante Giuliani as recipient of the "gift".

But because it is not so easy to meet such a busy man, Tutar poses as a reporter for the fictitious right-wing alternative medium "Patriots Report" and arranges an interview with Giuliani.

The interview takes place in the living room of a hotel suite.

A fake reporter, also a minor in the narrative of the film, who emphasizes how nervous she is - in the classic spy novel one would

speak

of a

honey trap

, a trap for Rudy Giuliani.

At first he reacts rather grandfather to Tutar's flattery.

But soon the hand goes to his buttocks, she pats his knee briefly.

Then a cut, in the next scene both of them are standing and Tutar says: "Should we have a drink in the bedroom?"

There Giuliani helps her to remove the microphone, sits down on the bed and asks for her number and address.

Then he pats her lower back while she fiddles with his microcable.

Then another cut, she has the microphone in her hand while Giuliani's hand goes into his pants.

Suddenly Cohen enters the room as Borat, in lingerie, and shouts: "She 15, she too old for you".

A security guard arrives, Giuliani leaves the suite, Borat and Tutar run away together.

Of course, the 76-year-old politician Giuliani could not have known that the alleged reporter was supposed to be a minor.

But by 2020, one might think that one should understand what professional behavior is and what is not.

This episode tends to fall into the latter category.

Giuliani sees it differently.

He defended himself on Twitter, saying he had just tucked his shirt into his pants.

Neither before, during nor after the interview did he behave inappropriately.

But at least the comedian Stephen Colbert does not agree - he, Colbert, takes off his microphone every evening and has never lay down on a king-size bed, he told the website "Daily Beast".

Enlighten through exposure

As far as the playful handling of fiction and reality is concerned, the reactions show that Sacha Baron Cohen is up to date - at least on the #Varoufake level.

In the run-up to that, one could not be entirely sure that his TV series "Who Is America?"

had been criticized, among other things because of the increasingly implausible disguises.

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Curse of Fame: Borat is recognized on the street

Photo: Amazon

There is now a plausible explanation for this in the new film: Borat is recognized on the street, people want to give him kisses and high fives - that way, there are no authentic reactions from the interlocutors.

So Cohen disguised as Borat has to keep disguising himself.

If you enjoy disguise humor, you will laugh out loud at some points - for example when Borat goes to the Republican event with a Ku Klux Klan hood.

Incidentally, heckling in Trump masks are not well received there.

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With a Trump mask at the pence speech

Photo: Amazon

Cohen has been mixing these rather plaintive parts with embarrassing conversations since the Ali-G times.

The film has some big moments here, especially when it comes to the role of women in parts of US society: An anti-abortion opponent is led to the edge of madness because he has to assume that father and daughter are happily chatting about an incest baby.

There are more nuances in the event of a Republican women's group than Tutar proudly talks about her first masturbation.

The framework story, however, has some déjà vu aspects and connects the individual confrontation coups rather tenaciously.

Kazakhstan as a symbol of social underdevelopment is overdone, even if it still lends itself to some pretty allusions to troll farms.

Compared to the first film from 2006, what has been said is even more blatant, the limits of decency have shifted, so to speak.

But can Maker Cohen seriously assume that this evidence could change the mind of someone who had even flirted with a Republican election?

Even with democratic voters, it is more likely to amuse them than to mobilize them - despite the election call with execution threats.

"Borat: Follow-Up Movie", from 23.10.

on Amazon Prime Video

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Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2020-10-22

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