Imagine this strange continuum: at one end, the funniest film about corruption and the illegal diamond trade in Africa. At the other, the most journalistically daring exercise in vainglorious self-indulgence. Situating The Ambassador on that spectrum is the viewer’s task, but Danish director Mads Brugger’s film is definitely in the realm of extremes. With surprising ease, Brugger buys himself a consular posting to the Central African Republic, and records his encounters with murderous thugs, shady opportunists and crooked diplomats on hidden camera. What transpires is shocking, not only because of his subjects’ matter-of-fact criminality, but also because Brugger pushes his alter ego to a Borat-like caricature, testing the limits of what those he meets with will believe.