Glod - Le village qui ne rit pas de Borat

It's quite difficult to understand what Mercedes Stalenhoef and the Dutch film that made this documentary intended to do or say. One year or so after Borat made the big splash and ran for the Oscars they went to the Romanian village of Glod (which means 'mud' in Romanian) apparently to make a film about the life of some anonymous girl whose problem in life is that she is 17 and not married (apparently the wedding age for girls in the village is 16 or so they say) and who dreams to run away from the place. The villagers remember well the team of 'Borat' and vaguely know that the film made it big (which in their terms means a few hundreds of thousands of dollars or Euros, the currency is unsure and does not really matter). Lawyers show up and a delegation is made to go to Hollywood and claim from Sacha Baron Cohen part of the money. Of course, they fail lamentably, they actually do not make it farther than London as nobody cared to get an US entry visa for them.

Several films could have been made based on this idea. One could have been an investigative film about the Hollywood team cheating and showing disrespect and especially underpaying the locals. However, they never get tough on the lawyers (besides having them speak an unspeakable dialog about Jews and Gipsies sharing fate) and they never give a chance to the team or studios who made 'Borat' to explain their case. They could have also presented the village in its true light, somehow compensate the damage made to the public image not only of Glod, but of the whole Eastern Europe space villages. They did not follow this track either, and the film is actually as disrespectful to the local culture and human nature of the inhabitants of the village as 'Borat' was. "Borat' was however at least funny, it was satire, it played according to rules of humor and satire, here in the documentary style it just looks in many instances rude. It also could have been the human story of the young girl in a remote corner of unified Europe trying to escape her condition. This is the closest thing Stalenhoef's documentary comes to be, but this thread as well is deformed by flaw story telling with the girl exchanging pretenders and than marrying in some kind of a happy end (?) in less than ten minutes of screen time. With all these accumulated failures 'Carmen Meets Borat' (a.k.a. The Village that did not laugh about Borat) looks like one more tentative to squeeze a few drops from the lucrative 'Borat' venue. But 'Borat' was at least funny - did I already say it?

Ionela is a 17 year old girl whose family owns a small shop in the Romanian village of Glod (which in English is "Mud"). She dreams of more than the godforsaken world of Glod, where she is considered "old" as she is 17 but is yet to marry and nothing ever really happens day-to-day. However this changed when a film crew came to the village making a documentary and there was a lot of excitement. Only later did the villagers discover that they had been had and that the film was to be the Borat movie, with them unwittingly playing the backward idiots of his fictional homeland. This film follows Ionela in the village while her father and grandfather are recruited by lawyers seeking to sue 20th Century Fox for misrepresentation.

A strange beast this film because of how it doesn't really achieve much that it could have done but yet still remains an interesting film despite itself. The film could have done a couple of things. It could have set the record straight by presenting Glod in an honest way – whether that makes it look "better" than in Borat or not. It could have followed the lawsuit against the film to see where that went and made a film of that. It could also have told a different story by following the real life within Glod of one person. Instead of doing one of these things it tries to do all three by following Ionela and her family and, while it makes the film feel a bit unfocused and messy, it does still hold the interest.

Personally I would have liked it to have settled on one thing to make the heart of the film and done a really good job on that, but it still works. The image of Glod is depressing – everyone lives in poverty, a lot of alcohol is being consumed all the time and it is unmistakably the world I see when I think of rural Eastern Europe. The film builds on this with the focus on Ionela and, in doing so starts to suggest that the film is not really about the Borat movie so much as that being used as a way into the story. This would have been the better film but it doesn't push forward with this idea and it does do as much with this as I would have liked. The introduction of the lawyers adds to the feeling of misery because yet again you get the impression that these people are perhaps being taken for a ride again – used to as long as they are useful but then cast to one side. We get to see this happen and we get to see the damage done generally to the people by the ongoing legacy of the film and it does make for generally grim but engaging viewing.

The problem is that I didn't know or care more at the end of the film than I did ten minutes into the film, which is a not really what you want to happen over an hour long film. The makers appear to have good access but by not picking a direction for sure they end up not getting anything brilliant out of their access. So, while this film is interesting, it is far from being insightful or fascinating as it never really decides what the "matter" is, far less get to the heart of it.

Sacha Baron Cohen filmed parts of his movie 'Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan' in the poverty stricken town of Glod (translation mud), Romania. The folks in town got paid about $4 for the work. Some claim that they were told that it was a documentary and they're offended by the slanderous dialog. Ionela Carmen is a young women desperate to leave the backwards town for Spain. Foreign lawyers come to town with promises of riches by suing 20th Century Fox and disrupting the Hollywood life of Sacha Baron Cohen.

In many ways, this movie is more damaging for that town than anything in Borat. It shows the town to be full of drunks, greedy thieves, bitter folks and general ugliness. It's also very compelling real life. It's probably missing a couple of scenes. It definitely needs somebody trying to contact Sacha Baron Cohen like Roger & Me style.

I attended the US Premiere of "Carmen Meets Borat" at the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival, and it was truly delightful. The film was shot in Romania and hails from The Netherlands.

Written and directed by Mercedes Stalenhoef, this poignant documentary takes us to the town of Glod, the "fictional" Kazakhstan village which served (somewhat unwittingly) as Borat's hometown in Sacha Baron Cohen's film of the same name. "Carmen Meets Borat" benefits from the latter character's name in its title but deservedly so.

The story of the film's origins is fascinating. While on vacation, Stalenhoef initially had a chance encounter with Carmen, a charming but feisty resident of a small country town in Romania. Intrigued by the description of her rich and colorful life in the former Communist country, Stalenhoef decided to travel to Glod and shoot a film about its people.

Serendipitously, 20th Century Fox just happened to show up in Glod during the filming of her documentary. In presenting its simple townsfolk as backwards and even somewhat perverted, "Borat's" presence caused Stalenhoef's film to evolve into something completely different -- an exposé of sorts, following the ensuing lawsuit which the residents of Glot filed against "Borat's" filmmakers for their negative portrayals and defamations. The residents there speak no English and had no awareness of Fox's intentions to portray them as prostitutes and sexual deviants.

Because we get to know and develop an affinity for the people of Glod long before Fox rolls into town, we can't help but sympathize with these folks when the big Hollywood studio crew shows up to exploit their innocence and naiveté. The film mixes cinema verité with a narrative style, as the residents occasionally address the camera directly with an eagerness to show the viewer just how full of life they really are. That said, the film can be uncomfortable to watch at times since these country folk can be viewed as "backwards" to some extent when compared to many in more developed areas, although nothing like what "Borat" depicts.

The soundtrack is similar to that used in "Borat," helping to illustrate the stark contrast between the reality of this peaceful village with the fictionalized town presented in the Fox movie. "Carmen Meets Borat" is as humorous and awkward as the residents of Glod. It may not be the best place to live, but it's nice to have visited.