Gala? What gala?

Posted by Philip Bast

Sometimes the best laid plans just can’t deliver.

Take Thursday’s "Opening Night Gala" event at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The red carpet was laid out perfectly, there was plenty of room for guests and celebs to manoeuvre, the fans and star watchers were comfortably ensconced behind barriers across the closed-off street, and photographers and television crews were thoughtfully lined up outside the doors to Roy Thompson Hall in perfect position to capture the moment.

Everything went off without a hitch. Just the way it should in the celebration of  The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, the first Inuit film ever to officially kick off the festival. The actors were gracious and accommodating of the press, and the producers lingered and chatted on camera, rightfully proud of their accomplishment.

Problem is, it was too darn civil. Too Canadian, if you will.

And I couldn’t help but empathize with the newspaper photographers, vying for the best picture for today’s front page on the Toronto dailies, knowing full well in advance that when they file those photos the news editors will be scratching their heads and saying who the heck are these people?

Just for the record, they are actors Leah Angutimarik and Pakak Innukshuk and the writing, producing, editing and cinematography team of Norman Cohn and Zacharius Kunuk.

Not that I’m yawning, but I’m almost grateful my battery goes dead within moments of flipping on the video camera. I’ve got a backup battery, of course, but it’s back in the hotel room on the charger.

Fortunately, I’m  working on a backup plan.

The real action will take place later, over at the Ryerson Cinema on Gerrard, prior to the  midnight screening of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

Judging by the movie trailers I’ve been seeing in the cinemas, with its racially and politically insensitive comedy, this should be a wacky event.

Little did I know how right that theory was.

By the time I got there, a full hour before showtime, the mostly student-age crowd was lined up around the corner and way down Church Street, with another line stretching the opposite direction. Why two queues, I asked the volunteer at the gate. Those are ticket holders, she said, pointing to the Church Street crowd, and those are people hoping to get last-minute tickets, she added, pointing to the line stretching back almost two blocks toward Yonge St.

This crowd is pumped, let me tell you. They’re hollering, and chanting “Borat! Borat!” and sporting signs like “Pimp my goat” or “Borat, I am cuzin of you.”

And that’s just the start of the in-jokes.

I look to peg down a spot near the thick rope separating the paparazzi from the red carpet, and I get the cold shoulder from people holding spots for the big guns ...CTV, CBC and local TV stations. I’m politely shunted down to the end of the line, where I squeeze in between a two-person crew from Fashion Television and Out There with Melissa DiMarco, who has a cameraman and two female assistants schooling her on the intricacies of Borat, a character she apparently knows nothing about.

Although I’m initially groaning at being stuck next to a broadcast diva, within moments I’m utterly charmed by DiMarco. She’s just so gosh-darned likable, and so is her crew. Her cameraman and I work out a system: he’s supporting a heavy camera on his shoulder, so I’ll shoot over his head, and he’s also got a crate to stand on, so when he goes high, I’ll go low. Co-operation is cool; we’ve got a deal.

Borat, by the way, is a fictitious character, played by Sacha Baron Cohen, the pompous French race car driver in the recent Will Ferrell comedy Talledega Nights. Perhaps best known for his alter-ego Ali G., he has also appeared in episodes of  Curb Your Enthusiasm, starring Seinfeld sidekick Larry David as a writer muddling his way through Hollywood.

Melissa DiMarco, by contrast, is a real person, starring in a dramedy about an entertainment journalist muddling her way through this competitive business. And it’s dawning on me, as the camera man keeps filming while we wait for the celebs, that I’m slowly becoming part of her “reality show.”

VIDEO: Melissa DiMarco brushes up on Borat trivia

Which is OK, because frankly, she’s part of mine. And did I mention, they’re all so gosh darn likable?

After about half an hour, the buzz picks up. There’s CTV’s Ben Mulroney, and CBC’s George Stroumboulopoulos on the carpet, schmoozing with the crowd, and who’s this? Why it’s that pretty little actress from Wedding Crashers, Isla Fisher, and if I over-hear her correctly, she and Borat, I mean Cohen, are an item.

VIDEO: Ben Mulroney, George Stroumboulopoulous and Isla Fisher schmooze the crowd.

Oh, and look over here .... it’s Michael Moore, chewing out the CBC crew for asking questions that are “too American” and now he’s chatting with Fashion TV about how his luggage went astray at Pearson International Airport, which explains his lack of tux or whatever fancier duds he might have intended to wear.

VIDEO: Michael Moore discusses fashion and airport luggage handlers

Then the music starts, and the crowd erupts in a roar: “Borat! Borrrat!! Borrrrrattt!!!!”

Coming down the sidewalk from the inner courtyard of the Ryerson complex is ... why, it’s a wooden farm cart, pulled by a trio of old-time Russian peasant women, with Borat perched atop, and, good grief, that’s his donkey riding along on the wagon!

Stop right here and take a look at the video. Seeing is believing, and I wouldn’t have  believed this without seeing it.

VIDEO: Borat does the red carpet

Borat’s reaching over and high-fiving the fans. He’s mugging for the newspaper photographers with a pair of flags, Canadian and Kazakhstani (or whatever the proper possessive declension of that noun is ... I didn’t get a chance to ask). We’re talking showmanship, real showmanship. And Borat is the new King of Comedy. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of the world catches on.

Ah, yes, somewhere across town, elegant couples in tuxes and evening dresses are sipping cocktails and noshing snacks at the post-screening gala party for a very important Canadian film, so important they had to unspool it in Toronto’s premiere concert hall.

But here at Ryerson campus, it’s midnight madness in the truest, most delightful manner.