Carmen Meets Borat Director: Mercedes Stalenhoef, The Netherlands, 2008, 85 minutes
Friday May 29 | 9:00PM | Vancity Theatre
In Carmen Meets Borat, director Mercedes Stalenhoef
follows the life of 17 year-old Carmen. She lives in a gypsy village
in the mountains of Romania, where the men spend their days tying
one on and exchanging coarse words in her father’s bar. Carmen
works daily in her father’s business. At home, she watches a Spanish
soap opera and dreams of a better life in Spain, where the men
are romantic and decent.
Her plan to emigrate falls to pieces when an American film crew
descends on her village to shoot Borat: Cultural Learnings
of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
The villagers cooperate on what they believe is a documentary,
however, the film depicts the villagers as primitive caricatures
supposedly from Kazakhstan. Carmen’s grandfather unknowingly plays
the part of a backstreet abortionist and poses for the camera
with a welding apparatus. Borat embraces a woman he introduces
as his sister and brags about her status as the fourth best whore
in Kazakhstan. The villagers don’t understand a single word of
English and laugh in good faith into the camera.
As soon as they find out that the English director has made fools
of them, they are outraged. When the film is released, the world
press throws itself on the village. The chaos is made complete
when an American lawyer holds out the prospect of a $30 million
insurance claim to the villagers.
He persuades Carmen’s father, grandfather, and the mayor to sue
Twentieth Century Fox for money that could be used to improve
the impoverished village. The film culminates with the three men
traveling to meet with the executives at Twentieth Century Fox.
Will the village win their case or is this just another westerner
exploiting them? Will Borat himself apologize?
Director’s Biography
Netherlands filmmaker Mercedes Stalenhoef made films for Amnesty
International from 1992 to 1995, when she started making independent
films. Her credits include: Clean Clothes, I Just Take My
Toys With Me, I Never Want To Be Famous and Carmen Meets
Borat.
