KAZAKHSTAN, it seems, is not quite a big enough target for all the explicit schtick of Borat, the pseudo journalist - played by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen - whose movie is about to be unleashed on the world next month.
In a Paris press conference, Borat flung his mucky mirth far and wide over a range of other victims, including US President George W. Bush, Mel Gibson, Brigitte Bardot, French cuisine and Uzbekistan.
But it was still Kazakhstan that bore the brunt of Baron Cohen’s satire - much to that country’s well-publicised chagrin, and much for the box-office benefit it will bring his film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan which starts screening from November 3.
Standing in front of a set made to look like an apartment in his fictional Kazakhstan, Baron Cohen - staying in character - launched into his spiel about the movie, which plays as a comic fake documentary on the United States.
Borat, a figure halfway between Mr Bean and Inspector Clouseau who was born out of a successful series Baron Cohen has performed on British television, is supposedly one of Kazakhstan’s top television journalists, down to his (real and quite long) moustache and his mangled, sexually-laced English.
“My name Borat … I am in fact the fourth most famous person in Kazakhstan,” he said, framed by a stuffed black bear and women’s underwear hanging from a clothes-line.
The preceding top three, he claimed, were a former gymnast now famed for her circus act which involved placing one of her feet in an unlikely place; “Johnny the Monkey”, a children’s entertainer and porn star; and (real) Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
He offered no accompanying details on Nazarbayev, preferring to leave a long, knowing silence that spoke volumes about the Kazakh leader’s genuine irritation at Baron Cohen’s routine and film.
Stung Kazakh officials have recently gone as far as to close down a website Baron Cohen was using to promote his character and hired a PR firm to take out press ads in a bid to counter the negative image they believe Borat has built on their country.
But Baron Cohen/Borat was not letting Nazarbayev entirely off the hook.
He said his “glorious leader”’s visit last month to see Bush was all in the name of promotion for his movie, and lauded the US president for being a “strong man” in the mould of John Wayne.
He also claimed the new ads vaunting Kazakhstan’s progress were “lying propogandas (sic) from a**holes Uzbekistan”, and warned that if they continued, “then Kazakhstan will be left with no alternative than to commence bombardment of Uzbeki cities with our catapults”.
Borat’s trademark antisemitism - in fact a technique whereby Baron Cohen, who is Jewish, elicits surprising reactions from some of his unsuspecting interview subjects - came to the fore when he agreed with a certain “Melvyn Gibson” that “the Jews started all the wars”.
“We also have proofs that the Jews were responsible for Hurricane Katrina and were also behind killing all the dinosaurs,” he said.
France also got a taste of the comedian’s lampooning.
“It’s a great honour to be here in minor nation of France,” he said, adding that all he had heard about the country’s refined cuisine was true.
“Your McDonald’s are wonderful … I eat there 15 of these delicious hamburgers,” though he reflected that “today there was a problem and my anus was hanging loose like the mouth of a tired dog”.
Nevertheless, he explained he was still on form should he have the occasion to meet a beautiful young actress he saw in And God Created Woman, a (1956) movie “just out” in Kazakhstan starring the now-weathered Brigitte Bardot.
“Wawawaylaa! I would very much like to make a romance inside of her!” he said.
Lest France or other countries worried they might next be in line to be “Borated,” however, Baron Cohen - who turns 35 next week - was reassuring, saying that a technical barrier was stopping him from doing any follow-up movies.
“Our country’s camera is being used to make another television programme,” his Borat said.
