• culture

• Theater

• Movie review

Two scenes left me speechless, but "Borat 2" is less wild than it claims to be

The scene with Rudy Giuliani is shocking, though not sure how much it will affect, and the encounter with the Holocaust survivor is one of the most exciting seen recently - but "Borat 2", which airs this weekend directly on Amazon Prime, is not without serious problems, and is more of a liberal fantasy than satire Subversive

Tags

• Borat

• Sasha Baron Cohen

• Rudy Giuliani

Avner Shavit

Thursday, 22 October 2020, 14:27

• Share on Facebook

• Share on WhatsApp

• Share on general

• Share on general

• Share on Twitter

• Share on Email

0 comments

• Netflix's "Grand Army" series

• A look at the digitization project of the Jerusalem Cinematheque Box ...

• Michael Kovner Ein Harod Museum

• Queen Gambit, Anya Taylor-Joy

• The BBC's series "Su Suitable Boy", ...

• Mirit Harari farewell video

• The Hebron mission

• Danny Kushmero meets a whale - screenshot

• Above and beyond the moon

• Shlomi Shabbat

Teaser for the movie "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm" (Amazon Prime)

PR Shai Librovsky

A decade and a half ago, no one talked about the terms "Corona" and "Pike News," no one imagined Trump would be president and no one recognized the famous Kazakh journalist who walked the streets of New York as part of "Borat" filming.

This year, when the sequel to the huge hit from 2006 was made, the world changed and almost everyone already recognizes this character.

So whoever is behind it, Sasha Baron-Cohen, is required to find new tricks and ideas.

does it work?

We get the answer in "Borat 2" ("Borat Subsequent Moviefilm") which airs directly on Amazon Prime this weekend.

When it comes to tricks, Baron-Cohen is required to wear different and weird identities and masks to outwit the woodpeckers along the way.

And as for the ideas - well, the film shoots in every direction, but it can be concluded that it goes in three main directions.

First of all, as the spirit of the times, this time Borat is accompanied on his journey from Kazakhstan to New York in a female character - his youngest daughter, Sandra Jessica Parker Szegedev, played by the Bulgarian discovery Maria Beklova, an actress who is actually 24. Through her character, the sequel seeks to engage in sexism in American society , Which ultimately leads to the most talked about scene here.

As you've probably heard, this is a scene in which Rudy Giuliani, Trump's lawyer, was exposed in his nakedness.

The Kazakh impersonates a conservative journalist and he enjoys not only praising the president in front of her, but also flirting with her, and then going into the bedroom with her, offering her to meet him for a drink and if that is not enough, lying on the bed in a position that is difficult to interpret in two faces.

It's a horrible, hard-to-watch class: we obviously knew there were people like that and things like that happen in the world, but the visual illustration of that was never easy to digest.

More on Walla!

NEWS

In the week that the demonstrations resumed, Arun Sorkin's film on Netflix is ​​exactly what we needed

To the full article

Difficult to watch.

The scene with Rudy Giuliani in "Borat 2" (screenshot from the movie)

This scene has become an item in the news sections around the world and especially of course in the United States, and one can understand why: Giuliani is currently one of the people closest to Trump and the main engine in trying to complicate Joe Biden in affair just before the election, and overthrow him as happened to Hillary Clinton.

It is clear that exposing his plot at such a time is of interest, but one should not focus only on it.

Equally important to her are all the moments prior to this incident, in which the film attempts to expose the culture that breeds such predatory men.

The reason Borat chooses to go to Giuliani is a headline on a website stating that the lawyer is a fan of "women with big breasts."

In addition, he and his daughter win the visit to the United States to visit a store where they are happy to sell a dress that conveys that "no he does";

Intended with a special counselor who explains how to be a "lady" to conquer the heart of a rich man;

Visitors to a clinic where they are taught why abortions are forbidden under any circumstances;

Going through a prom where an accuser tells the Kazakh guest that he would pay five hundred dollars for his daughter;

And for dessert, they visit the Plastic Surgery Center, where they are required to part with a few tens of thousands of dollars to adapt to the demands of American politicians.

The other direction: flipping through a host of other ailments of American society, especially those that characterize our day, such as spreading false news on networks, and the failed treatment of Corona.

In addition to sexual innuendos, Giuliani is also careful to state that the Chinese produced the virus and deliberately spread it around the world, and that without Trump's excellent treatment, another million Americans would have died.

At another moment, Borat attends an event featuring Mike Pence, which took place when the plague was in its infancy, and the vice president proudly declares that only a tiny amount of civilians have been infected and that the situation is completely under control - things that now sound ridiculous, if not tragic.

More on Walla!

NEWS

One Hundred Movies to Watch on Netflix: The Complete Guide

To the full article

The Bulgarian discovery.

From "Borat 2" (Photo: PR)

The third direction is revealed as dealing with the Jewish identity of Baron-Cohen, who also here speaks Hebrew whenever his character ostensibly speaks Kazakh, and discusses the scourge of anti-Semitism even more than last time.

Thus, for example, comes the most powerful moment in the film: Borat asks his soul to die, but since he has no money to buy a gun, he goes to a synagogue "to wait for the next shooting attack," and does so dressed as a stereotypical cartoon of a Jew.

Instead, he meets two elderly women - one of whom is a Holocaust survivor named Judith Dim Evans, who has passed away since the filming.

Her daughter is now suing Baron-Cohen for allegedly misleading her mother, but the truth is that the anger is unnecessary.

If her late mother is watching a movie from heaven, she can be proud of herself.

It is hard to describe in words how much kindness there is in the way the wonderful old woman approaches the antisemitic Kazakh, explaining to him that despite everything he has heard, he has nothing to fear from her, and that despite what Holocaust deniers have told him, this horror did occur, and she knows it was there.

This is one of the most humane and exciting scenes ever seen on screens.

So yes, there are moments in the film that left me speechless, but there are also a lot of dead moments in it.

The frame story is lame - and the ending, which of course we will not reveal its content, is inferior even to a script that deliberately tries to break the records of stupidity.

Between these two and the more powerful moments, time and time again a soft and dull belly is revealed, with no momentum on the part of Baron-Cohen or director Jason Walliner, who so far has specialized mainly in television work.

One of the most beautiful moments of the year.

From "Borat 2" (Photo: PR)

There are some fundamental problems here: the surprise effect that was in the previous film has probably been lost, and worse - it is impossible to compare the situation today to what it was at the time.

So we were much more naive.

Nowadays, when reality surpasses all imagination, it is difficult to create an extreme satire of the kind that is being attempted here.

It is no coincidence that despite the success of "Borat", we have not witnessed a cinematic flourishing of the documentary genre, which combines documentaries and thrillers.

It’s hard to create successful pranks in a world where everything is dumb and so everything makes sense, so most of the pranks in the film are self-evident, forced or even exhausting.

If the class clown is inflated in the middle of a Bible lesson once - it's funny. The second time, it's already oppressive.

Another problem: to make his point clear, the film repeatedly uses the body of its protagonist, who has experienced a series of physical humiliations. And satirical, but does not someone who so often presents situations in which a woman is treated as an object and despised her not become part of the problem instead of part of the solution?

There are problems in the scene where the protagonist is seduced into trying to trap Giuliani. The Pam-Patel mythology to use it as a tool and nothing more, to settle the conflict between Trump and Biden A second, more practical thought: Is it really old? The American public knew much worse things about the president himself and his treatment of women, and that did not stop From him to be elected, so why would this exposure on his lawyer move anything? In the end, maybe all that would be left of this scene was that he was given a chance to pour his gag on a handsome young woman for a few minutes.

big success?

Not sure.

From "Borat 2" (Photo: PR)

And the most serious problem of all, for me, is that it seems to me that the film is far less critical of Americans than it thinks.

True, we meet quite a few nasty characters here, and there are some hard-to-watch scenes here, but time and time again the character of the "good American" emerges - kind, hospitable, liberal and progressive.

There is hardly a scene where this ideal does not emerge to correct the distorted, and create the impression that most Americans are just fine.

Those who are not, are presented here as weeds, such that in order to weed them it will be enough to vote and kick out Trump and his entourage.

Oddly enough for a film that claims to be so topical, it does not touch on the deep ailments of American society - for example, police violence against blacks and capital-government ties.

Issues that will remain with us even after a dozen years with Biden and then with Harris.

But the film, pretentious as it may be, does not see so deep or so far.

His point of view is much simpler.

More than subversive satire, it's a liberal fantasy.

Perhaps Baron-Cohen was influenced by the director with whom he worked on "The Law of the Seven from Chicago," known for his tendency to create such tales.

More than a Borat movie, it's a Ark Sorkin movie.

• Share on Facebook

• Share on WhatsApp

• Share on general

• Share on general

• Share on Twitter

• Share on Email

0 comments