7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
An enigmatic white diplomat arrives in central Africa sporting dark glasses, riding boots, and a cigarette holder. Officially, he is there to start a factory that will employ locals to produce matches. Unofficially, he has really come to gain access to the area’s vast reserves of diamonds. It soon becomes apparent that, in this post-colonial economy, nearly everyone is out to rip off everyone else, and the dangers become all too real.
Starring: Mads BrüggerDocumentary | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 kbps)
Also Danish, French & Sango (same track)
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Digital copy (as download)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 2.5 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
What can you possibly do for a more dangerous encore after venturing into Kim Jong-il's North Korea masquerading as the manager of a comedy troupe to make a documentary about life under the dictator's regime? Danish TV journalist Mads Brügger won the 2010 Grand Jury prize at Sundance for Red Chapel, his feature-length documentary based on the television show crafted from his adventures in the "dear leader's" realm. For his next venture, Brügger went farther off the map: into the Central African Republic (or "CAR"), a blighted former French colony about the size of Texas that lies in almost the exact center of the continent. Neighboring countries include Chad, the Congo, Cameroon and the Sudan. The war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur directly borders the CAR on the northeast. The CAR is so little known outside Africa that, according to Brügger, when the U.S. helped evacuate deposed Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to the CAR in 2004, the plane's pilot had to radio the State Department to confirm that such a country actually exists. Still recovering from centuries of European exploitation, the CAR is beset by poverty and a lack of industrial development, despite an abundance of available labor and a wealth of natural resources. The reason, as one government official explains to Brügger, is a habit taught by the French when they ruled the land as colonists: corruption. (The official himself is a Frenchman, and he is no longer available by the end of Brügger's stay in the CAR.) Starting a business threatens a status quo that is profitable for many people connected by bonds of blood, history and mutual advantage. These bonds, and some of the people entangled in them, are generally invisible to an outsider, but they remain zealously protected. That's not to say a foreigner can't still profit from the CAR, but he has to learn how to play the game. The Ambassador documents Brügger's efforts to become a player by obtaining certification as a diplomat so that he can move freely in and out of the CAR, smuggling so-called "conflict diamonds" (a/k/a "blood diamonds") on his travels. "Conflict diamonds" are those whose sale finances war or insurgency, and major diamond-consuming countries like the U.S. and Canada have become increasingly restrictive of their importation. Thus, if conflict diamonds can be smuggled out of a tainted region and "laundered" through a European dealer, they become an exceptionally valuable commodity.
The Ambassador was shot with a variety of video cameras, and the image on Image Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray varies in quality according the source material. Footage acquired in hi-def is sharp, detailed and colorful, with excellent blacks and well-saturated, often vibrant colors. If the quality never quite reaches the level of a digitally acquired feature film, that is no doubt the result of using smaller, lighter cameras with which Brügger and his staff could travel easily and inconspicuously. Other footage was captured with tiny hidden cameras, such as the meeting with credentials broker Colin Evans, who can be heard repeatedly instructing Brügger to leave his phone and take off his jacket, so that their meeting can't be recorded. Fortunately for Brügger (and us), Evans never followed through on the jacket part, and Brügger recorded the meeting on a camera concealed under his jacket. The footage isn't anything special to look at, but documenting the meeting was a triumph. (After the film came out, Evans was forced to shut down his website, although he has undoubtedly found a way to restart it elsewhere.) Because Brügger and crew were shooting "on the fly" and without any opportunity to light or rearrange the scene, some shots show video noise, usually in the distance on surfaces with reflections or too much fine detail. These instances are occasional and minor.
The sole audio track is DD 2.0. Now, before anyone gets too worked up about the lack of a lossless option, take a moment to understand what's on the track. The soundtrack of The Ambassador consists of a cacophony of voices speaking multiple languages: English, French, Danish and Sango (the language of the CAR). Everyone who speaks in English has a thick accent, including Brügger, who narrates the film, and all of the voices (other than the narration) have been recorded on the scene as production sound, which means that they're frequently muffled and indistinct. So the question is, how much difference would a lossless track make to a scene featuring a negotiation between a Danish-speaking Brügger and a French-speaking diamond mine owner, with a translator alternating between them? Indeed, so concerned are the film's and disc's producers that the linguistic melange will confuse the viewer's ear that they have provided English subtitles for everything (including the English portions), and these subtitles cannot be switched off. This is a disc that's more likely to be read than listened to, except that the voices supply a valuable sense of the cross-cultural chatter that underlies the deadlock in the CAR. A musical score by Niklas Schak and Tin Soheiliis is also part of the track, but it is used sparingly and at such low volume in the background that it blends easily into the ambiance. More prominent are the few song selections that play ironically over certain scenes, notably The Inkspots' "I Don't Wanna Set the World on Fire" and Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land".
I love films like The Ambassador, because they challenge our notion of what is or isn't "impossible" or "improbable". Viewers constantly respond to fiction films (or novels) by insisting that this or that event or (character) couldn't possibly happen (or exist) in real life, but reality is so much bigger than any one individual's tiny slice of experience. For those willing to have their eyes opened, documentaries like this one introduce you to people and places that, if someone made them up, you might not believe. Even the little side incidents are startling. When the participants are toasting the signing of the diamond contract, listen to the conversation about Hitler and pay close attention to the attitude exhibited by Brügger's chargé d'affaires, Paul. You'll suddenly realize that things we take for granted look a whole lot different from the outlook of a part of the world we can barely begin to imagine. Highly recommended.
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