I like the fact that so many people tried to get themselves removed from the Borat film. Look, you got caught being a sexist, or a racist, or a gigantic pussy – just live with it; that’s the whole point of Borat, to expose people’s prejudices and idiocy with a sly wink of complicity. Sure Sacha Baron Cohen helped put the noose round your neck, but you chose to hang yourself.

The scene that makes me laugh the most in Borat is the dinner scene where the Kazakh reporter is invited to a posh Southern dinner party. At first he embarrasses himself in a minor way by asking whether one of the guests is a retard and by questioning the attractiveness of one of the women, but despite this the hostess is still optimistic. When Borat excuses himself to go to the toilet, she confidently states that it wouldn’t take much to civilise this uncouth individual – he could be Americanised in no time. But then Borat returns with a pile of shit in a bag – his shit. This causes red faces aplenty, but still the hostess tries to muddle through. She even shows Borat how to take a crap. But it’s only when a black whore comes a knocking at the door that the hostility begins. Somehow shitting in a bag, calling someone a retard and calling a guest ugly is acceptable (albeit in an exasperating kind of way), but the presence of a black person in this Southern haven is beyond the pale. Nothing is more offensive than this.

Another scene that jabs at America’s dark underbelly is the rodeo sequence. Yeah, Borat’s cries of jingoistic encouragement are amusing, but it’s the exchange between Borat and the cowboy that’s more revealing. This fool spouts nonsense about killing all the Iraqis and then suggests that all of America’s homosexuals should be removed too. He even says something along the lines that ‘they’ (he takes it upon himself to speak for the country) should all be strung up. And this is what makes Borat such a great character. By acting like such an idiot he puts everyone at their ease. And it’s only when people are comfortable that the truth comes spilling from their mouths.

Another painful truth is the misogyny that is present in certain sections of American society. The frat boys, for instance, spout nonsense about men being better than women. Indeed, after the tearful revelation that Pamela Anderson is not a virgin, they tell a distraught Borat that he’s better than any female. For all the progress that Western society has made, it still hasn’t really got that far. And also in the frat boy sequence, the drunken idiots claim that the minorities have the most power. What the fuck are they smoking? Doubtless, later in life, when their marriages fall apart and their careers go nowhere, they’ll blame the Jews, the gays and the blacks for their failures. They’ll do anything but take a hard look at themselves.

A less insightful sequence that had me chuckling was the one on the New York subway. I just love how willing New Yorkers are to tell someone to go fuck themselves. Here in London, Borat’s acts would only be greeted by looks of bemusement and the odd muttered insult. New Yorkers, though, are perfectly happy to get in someone’s face. And there’s an even funnier bit on the streets where a New Yorker, backed into a corner by Borat, tells the Kazakh to get out of his face, that he’ll pop him in the balls if he doesn’t back away (?!?). Quite why this individual would chose to pop Borat in the balls, I’m not sure (there are so many easier places to pop), but the humourless ‘get out of my face’ aggression that is particular to New York never fails to put a smile on my lips.

Something else that put a smile on my lips was the naked wrestling scene. There are few things less joyous in life than two men fighting in the buff (‘my moustache still tastes of your testes’, says Borat later on). And I love the way that Borat’s penis is obscured by a massive black letterbox. You just know that Borat has been in the editing room, trying to make himself look as good as possible. But although the homoerotic grappling garners laughs aplenty, there’s a wonderful little moment that is easy to miss. The fight spills out into the hotel and they even get into a lift. But while most of the people run out in horror, one man remains – he stares passively forward, desperately trying not to lose his dignity.

But although the film points its finger at the numerous freaks and idiots it encounters along the way, it also points its finger at the audience. Just how willing are we to buy into this myth of Kazakhstan – a place where old ladies are 34, where cattle live in houses with their owners and where men snog their sisters (and who are also prostitutes). Few things give us greater pleasure than a false sense of superiority. Our lives may be shit, we think, but at least we don’t have it this bad. Therefore you can’t help but ask yourself why you’re laughing at some of these jokes – am I really that far removed from the homophobic cowboy or the misogynistic frat boys? My excuse is that I’m a jerk. What’s yours?

The point of Letters From Iwo Jima is a little obvious. It tells us that the Japanese were human beings too. Well, I’m sure any intelligent individual would have already known that. But does the film tell us anything more than this? I’m not sure that it does. Therefore I can’t add myself to the list of people who hail Letters From Iwo Jima as a masterpiece. In fact, I think Flags of Our Fathers may well be the better film. It at least attempted to try and do something different with the traditional war flick. It tried to open it up and show some sort of historical perspective. And although Letters From Iwo Jima does this to a certain extent, it didn’t do it enough for my liking.

In Letters From Iwo Jima Eastwood seems so burdened by his desire to show the Japanese as human beings that the film often feels manipulative. For instance, there’s a scene where two Japanese soldiers, tired of fighting, decide to surrender to the Americans. The very second that the prisoners were left alone with two Yanks I knew what was going to happen. But despite that, I kept on saying to myself, ‘Don’t shoot them’. But of course, the Americans do indeed shoot the Japanese soldiers. You can hear the film shouting at you: ‘Look, we did bad things too! We’re as bad as each other!’ But although the Allies did indeed do terrible things, the film doesn’t really show the other side of the coin. We see some of the Japanese officers mistreating their soldiers, but we don’t see any of the terrible things that were done to American troops – the only piece of up close violence is when some Japanese soldiers repeatedly bayonet an American, and that’s mainly out of surprise and fear, which is perfectly understandable in a combat situation.

However, unlike some people, I didn’t find it particularly dubious that a couple of the ‘good’ Japanese characters had some sort of connection to America - The General and Baron Nishi both have spent time there. I think the point the film is trying to make here is that these individuals have the experience to know that the Americans are people just like them, that the government is lying is when it makes them out to be monsters and cowards. Therefore the ordinary person, who doesn’t have the life experience of these characters and who is constantly bombarded by propaganda, believes the lies that are spat out. But the scene where an American soldier is captured by Baron Nishi and we find out that he isn’t the scum the Japanese government has made him out to be fell a little flat for me. Again it felt a little laboured. I’m just not sure that it would be so easy for a large group of people to deprogram years of bullshit and lies.

And it disappointed me that the film didn’t investigate the motivations of the Japanese in any depth. We see that the ordinary man was forced into combat – there’s a good scene where the film’s main character, a baker, is forced to look pleased when he’s called up for duty – but the motivations of the government itself are left unsaid. As a consequence you don’t fully understand the crap the Japanese were fed. And I think it would be a lot easier to sympathise with the characters if we were given a fuller picture – the snippets that we’re given, like the baker being called up and the soldier who’s forced to kill a woman’s dog by a superior, help somewhat, but the ‘bad’ characters remain screaming stereotypes. What was their motivation?

What works well, though, is the portrayal of the misery the Japanese soldiers had to go through. Living in caves like animals, they certainly didn’t have an easy time of it. And then having hardly any ammunition, little water and virtually no food you wonder how they had the will to fight at all. And that’s what makes their story tragic – that so many lives were lost for nothing. And I couldn’t help but feel anger when a large group of Japanese soldiers held grenades to their chest and blew themselves up. You want to be able to break them out of their spell, to tell them that their deaths are without reason. And I guess it’s telling that it was in these sorts of scenes, ones were you feel like you’re not being manipulated, that I felt the most sympathy for the Japanese. The film didn’t need to try as hard as it did to communicate the waste of the conflict, you can feel it completely in moments like the one described.

Another moment that I found powerful was when we see a Japanese pillbox get attacked by American soldiers – they attack it with a flamethrower. We actually see this scene first in Flags of Our Fathers. Therefore, rather cleverly I think, Eastwood is asking us where our priorities lie. In the previous film we maybe cheered or smiled or were pleased that the enemy died, but here we’re confronted with the reality – it wasn’t the enemy that were killed, it was a group of ordinary people from a different country who were unlucky enough to get caught up in the conflict. There’s no joy in their deaths. It’s simply a waste.