Picture Graham Greene crossed with James Bond, with a splash of Sacha Baron Cohen, and you’ll start to imagine the nervy talents of Mads Brügger, the fearless Danish filmmaker who has for a second time come up with a stunning, funny, and vital piece of guerilla cinema.
Last time Brügger went beyond the nutty curtain to North Korea for his film “Red Chapel.” This time, in “The Ambassador,” he goes undercover as a businessman seeking to buy diplomatic credentials in order to exploit the diamond business in the Central African Republic, a home of blood diamonds.
Using a couple of shady dealers caught on hidden cameras, Brügger buys himself (or thinks he does) the title of consul from Liberia in a process that is apparently so common nobody even wonders why a paleface from northern Europe should enjoy such rank. One of the agents he deals with blithely refers to the possibility that Brügger might be up to “nefarious things” but wishes not to know too much about it.
In the Central African Republic, Brügger explores and reveals the immense scale of corruption, traceable to the highest levels of government, with surreptitious footage of business meetings. But as the saying goes, if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. As he issues what he calls “envelopes of happiness” (bribes) and negotiates with shady figures including the head of the ruling party, the head of state security and the son of the president (who is also the defense minister), you get the feeling that if his techniques are discovered (or if he simply stops the flow of money) he could wind up dead in a ditch. One of the people we get to know in this satire cum tragedy indeed gets assassinated during the course of filmmaking.
Only slightly less sinister are the glimpses of weird customs: A pilot agrees to take Brügger and his partners to the bush to look at a mine, but, because it’s a war zone, says that if the passengers don’t return to the plane within two hours, he’s leaving. The man selling the rights to the mine, a Muslim, keeps a woman around him, apparently against her will, whenever he requires good luck. Signing the diamond-rights deal, Brügger is suddenly asked for 5 million francs in random “different fees.” Then, after the contract is signed, he’s told that it’s illegal and that his safety won’t be guaranteed if the government finds out about it.
The seriousness, depth and degree of difficulty here are extraordinary, and yet Brügger is primarily a comedian with an eye for the ridiculous. “This is what the NGO people don’t understand: You can really have fun in Africa!” he declares after his business partners get a tribe of Pygmies plastered on moonshine to create a party atmosphere. Another festive moment turns to the subject of Hitler’s oddest traits. “Hitler is funny. He has many stories,” says one of his new colleagues.
Few documentaries bother to pursue such a complicated subject in such detail, let alone at such personal risk, and though the conclusion leaves some questions unanswered, Brügger confirms that he is one of Europe’s most exciting filmmakers. He has the courage of an astronaut, the doggedness of an investigative reporter and the showmanship of a circus performer.