Tag: Foreign

Alvin’s Harmonious World of Opposites has a lot of things going for it right off the bat.

One: It has an amazing title. We immediately know who the main character is, and we know that there will be some fucked up shit in this movie.

Two: It is the first film I saw for WorldFest here in Houston, in an actual theater. I saw 16 of them before the festival started, but they were in chairs in my homes and at work and on my phone, not in theaters.

Three: The promo image for the movie (seen below) has a large assortment of pandas. So many goddamn pandas. Stuffed, cute, pandas. I actually have 5 stuffed panda toys in my house right now! I am not as obsessed as this main character, but I can certainly, and will happily, relate.

Squeeeeeeeeeee!

Alvin (Teik Kim Pok) is a bit agoraphobic, and he hasn’t left his small apartment in about 18 months. He talks with his friend (Nitin Vengurlekar) on Skype, his job is translating manuals into Japanese with a boss (Ailís Logan) who thinks he is at an office, and he orders everything online. His groceries, a shit ton of knickknacks, and of course panda themed items. He is a bit obsessed, but he doesn’t notice that of course.

Most of his face to face interaction is with his neighbor, Virginia (Vashti Hughes), a vile mouthed racist who blames everything on everyone else and cares not about her volume. Oh, and there is an attractive girl who lives below him, whom he has never talked to, but he has a peep hole in his floor into her bedroom. Erm.

Problem’s begin to really arise when Alvin finds some black substance leaking from the attic into his room. He has some neat freak tendencies, and it is entirely too gross, so he goes to check on it. And what he finds up in his attic he would have never guessed in a million, panda billion, years.

Also featuring Tina Andrews and Dessy Fitri.

If he doesn’t watch it, his foul mouthed neighbor might accidentally eat him.

Alvin’s blahblah is a short film, only about 70 minutes with a handful of characters. Mostly just Alvin and his neighbor, along with the weird lady who lives in her attic. In case you are not ready for the film, the first scenes quickly give us the neighbor on a “cunt” fueled rant to wake up the viewer.

Personally, my favorite scenes were just Alvin hanging out in his Apartment, working, living his life. As advertised, the attic magical “adventure” that he went on was sure, yeah, quite weird. It had gibberish language and a lot of silence. It was bizarre and a complete tonal shift from the rest of the film.

With some thought, you can sort of figure out the purpose of his trip and what it means for his character, it is certainly not given to you on a platter. At the same time, I have no reason to suspect my own interpretation of events are correct at all, and I can easily be reading it wrong.

If this movie was entirely about a man who had slowly turned into a hoarder who never left his small room, I probably would have enjoyed it more. The attic makes the entire thing unique and stand out, but it is just so extreme. It was still quite well done given the subject matter and time.

I think 100 Streets was made completely as a joke. At some point in the review, I will get into why the whole concept is pointless, or at least it is in regards to the titles.

But if you have Idris Elba in a movie, you are totally not allowed to talk about streets.

Quite famously, one of the more recent authors of the 007 books, Anthony Horowitz, said that Elba was “Too Street” to play James Bond in a movie, giving the world confusion, rage, and quite apparent calls of racism.

So that is reason one why this movie is probably a joke, and one I am just starting to get.

Elba is so street, he is on a balcony above the street. With a gun of course. Typical, streety, Elba.

The plot of 100 streets is about the lives of three households, all within 100 streets of each other in London. Let’s start with the bigger stars. Max (Idris Elba) is a retired Rugby player, captain of a team, very famous in London and rich. He has a wife, Emily (Gemma Arterton), and two kids, but they are currently separated. So he lives alone. He has a drug problem and is focused too much on things outside of the family. So she is seeing someone else and annoyed at his existence.

We also have George (Charlie Creed-Miles) and his wife Kathy (Kierston Wareing), who are struggling. They are poor, kind of. George is a nice guy, he sings, he drives a cab, he coaches. They are looking to add a kid into his life, but some stuff in George’s pass come up, and also he accidentally kills someone.

And finally, we have Kingsley (Franz Drameh), a drug dealer who has been arrested. He has a pregnant girlfriend and lives with his mom, but he is trying to better his life and considers himself an urban poet.

And this is their story, with parts interconnected, including other people who connect their lives. People like Ken Stott, Ryan Gage, Tom Cullen, and Ashley Thomas.

This would be sexier if she was with her husband, Elba, known gangster and criminal.

How big is London? I know it is a giant city, tons of people, one of the biggest business areas in the world. But if I had to define it by its number of streets in one direction, is it ever more than 100? I don’t know, I can’t tell. I know NYC probably isn’t bigger than 100 streets in a direction. Something like Houston would be, but it is sprawling outwards and giant.

Either way, 100 streets is a giant amount of distance, so it might as well be about three random groups of people who occasionally run into each other. A normal multi plot film. If it was 15 streets, maybe they’d have something, but I still think that is a big chunk in a residential area.

As for the movie, it is overly dramatic and incredibly uninteresting. There can be sad moments, slightly chaotic moments, but it is just so hard to care about any of these people. We can care a bit about Kingsley and his plot line, as he is the guy super down in the dumps, basically living on the streets and screwed. And as soon as he finds a way to better his life, his own karma comes up and bites him in his ass.

The plot lines never really feel like they conclude. They are just moments in a few lives, and they aren’t great moments. A lot of drama, some okay moments, and a lot of “Who gives a fuck?”

[Editor’s Note: I watched Land of Mine before the Oscars, but couldn’t publish it until March 10, so keep that in mind.]

In my attempt to prepare for the Oscars, I was able to see the Denmark film, Land of Mine, making it my second to last film in that category. Most years I see 0-2 of the foreign films, so I am quite surprised I made it this far. I haven’t reviewed them all, but damn it, I reviewed some.

Now sure, it is a foreign film about World War II, and we are chock full of World War II films, but for the most part, they come from an American/English/German perspective. So a Danish WWII film has the potential to offer up something new on the subject, and a hope to have a new story worth telling.

And please not just be a film about boot camp and normal war tropes.

The film begins with the end of World War II. The Germans have surrendered after the suicide of Adolf Hitler, and now reparations are being made.

For this film, we are focusing on landmines (thus the title), thousands of them placed on the Denmark coast by the Nazi soldiers. They have maps of each landmine of course, because they needed it to get out of the area, so the Danish government has said that the German soldiers need to disarm and remove them.

Germany has sent over a group of soldiers to take care of it. However, these soldiers are all men in their teens. They were forced to join the army in the final months, given the need of bodies, and probably didn’t do anything terrible in their short time. But they were given to this dangerous job so that the older soldiers with more clout could go back home. They were a sacrifice.

Sgt. Carl Rasmussen (Roland Møller) is in charge of training these soldiers on how to properly dissarm and remove them. He is hard on them, because damn it, they are Nazis. But he also needs them to do a good job, because he doesn’t want his own men to get rid of the bombs, and he doesn’t need them all dying leaving thousands of mines left to go.

It is a grueling process, and every time someone makes a mistake, body parts go flying and their life is cut short. But they are promised when they finish the beach, they can go home. They have something to work towards. As long as they can make it.

Also starring Louis Hofmann, Joel Basman, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, Emil Belton, and Oskar Belton.

My years of minesweeper playing has taught me that they should be placing red flags.

Yep, as I already mentioned we got another WW2 war film. Thankfully, this one is heavy on the drama, and weak on the war. Taking place after the war is helpful in that regard. It still has some graphic violence of course. Given that we are dealing with land mines, it should not be surprising that some people blow up thanks to these minds.

And those scenes were gross. But they were realistic.

Land of Mine tells a story that decades ago no one would want to tell. No one wants to here the plight of the Nazi. But these kids were barely Nazis, barely adults, and didn’t deserve to die either.

Land of Mine is well acted, but hard to watch at times. And hard to hear at other times. But a worthy foreign film to be nominated.

This year for the Oscars, I was able to see 0 out of the 5 foreign films before they were announced. Yeah, yeah, I suck. And for the most part, I decided I didn’t even want to review them all if I saw them, only if I liked them enough to feel inspired to write.

Which brings me to A Man Called Ove. Which I clearly loved. A Swedish film, originally called En man som heter Ove, based on a book, it was surprisingly nominated for TWO Academy Awards. The obvious Best Foreign Film and Best Makeup and Hairstyling. Whoa, a double threat.

I have started to learn the Swedish language, technically. I mean, I did some lessons on Duolingo. So Sweden and I already have that connection going. This film is going to be the beginning of a beautiful film relationship, I can tell.

Ack! Kids in the relationship so quickly!

Ove (Rolf Lassgård) has lived a long and potentially lonely life, so now it is time to end it. He is just angry at everything in the world. He lives in a small community in a house alone. And people these days just cannot seem to follow the rules! There is a small road outside his house where driving is not permitted, and people keep driving there, for instance.

And just when he is finally ready to end it all, a family moves in nearby. A Persian woman, Parvaneh (Bahar Pars), pregnant with two kids, and their husband, a Swedish man. They keep bothering him, needing assistance or other things. Just as he is trying to off himself, watching parts of his life flash before his eyes, they get interrupted or he gets let down by faulty equipment.

Can’t an old man just die already?

But soon he gets too involved with the families around him again. He gains responsibilities, he has things he must take care of, despite just wanting to be with his wife again in the afterlife. Oh yeah, he was married. And they have a few tragic events in their life as well.

Can Ove finally get to move on in peace?

Also starring Tobias Almborg, Ida Engvoll, and Filip Berg as young Ove.

First the kids, then the cat, then the other kid, then the gay kid. What a to do list!

A Man Called Ove gives me everything I want in a movie. Appropriately timed flashbacks, tragedy, an emotional connection, a cranky old man, annoying neighbors, and proof that old dogs can learn new tricks. Okay, okay, those are all very specific to this movie, but I still enjoyed it a lot.

Lassgård was able to carry this movie mostly with a grim look on his face. And you know what, the viewer will most likely agree with everything he complains about, despite everyone else in the film thinking he is being ridiculous. He is a strong actor, and the guy who plays his younger self does a good job.

I did find myself a bit annoyed at some of the neighbors too, they did bug the shit out of him and he had every right to be angry.

I don’t have much else to say on the film, outside of it being entertaining, a nice comedy drama, and a well acted romp out of Sweden.

I already went to great lengths to make sure I watched every major American animated release from 2016, to be super prepared for the Oscars. But it is always those foreign pictures that give me difficulty. Usually something from Japan gets nominated, usually Studio Ghibli, and usually not much else. The occasional Euro film makes it through as well.

So let’s just say that I am really hoping that The Red Turtle gets to make it on the list, and not really anything else. Because then I probably won’t be able to see any other foreign film, because those tend to not come out in America until halfway through the next year.

Come on The Red Turtle, be nominated! Or at least, if not you, then only American movies!

Beaches get me angry. Sand everywhere, sand in every nook, cranny, and crevice.

Man gets shripwrecked. Man lands on island. Man alone on island, except bamboo, fruits, and hermit crabs. Man wants off of island. Man builds small bamboo raft, but after man gets away from the shore, some creature breaks it apart and he has to swim to shore.

Man grows beard. Man build another raft, bigger. Creature still destroys raft. Man tries third time, huge raft, huge huge raft. And this time he sees red turtle once he gets farther out. And yes, the turtle destroys the raft again.

Fucking turtles. Man is angry and pissed off. So he screams from island mountain, and turtle comes to shore. Man is angry. Man hits turtle and flips it on its back. Fucking turtles.

Man feels sad the next day. Turtle is dead. Time for man guilt. Then the turtle cracks in half. Suddenly, in the turtle shell is a young woman, no longer a dead animal. She is pretty and only companion in a long time. So…

Fucking turtles.

I can see the desire.

The Red Turtle is a film that can go all over the world and still be understood without too much difficulty. It has no dialogue for any of the characters (outside some nice screams and grunts), so there is nothing to translate. The story is told through their actions and the universal language of emotion. Of sorrow, angst, love, and regret.

And it is easy to see why it would receive almost universal acclaim. It is always hard to make a film lacking a normal element, like dialogue. And I am a person who loves dialogue, so the more dialogue the better for me. But it easily tells the entirety of its story and somehow still made me cry near the end.

The animation style is simplistic, but sleek. It doesn’t use a lot of 3D CGI, just standard looking fair that flows nicely from scene to scene.

Some people will go into this film and hate it or find chunks a bit more confusing. But it is a relatively unique experience and worth your time, only lasting about 80 minutes. Also, the implied bestiality is a nice touch for a family film.

At some point, I probably just assumed that Paul Verhoeven was dead. His last movie was in 2012, Tricked, and I never really heard about it. Before that, 2006, Black Book, another I hadn’t ever seen. And before that, 2000, Hallow Man, which totally fits his style.

He has gotten older so I don’t expect a movie every 2 years, but man he used to be so on the map.

So when I saw Elle I basically ignored it (even with the awards talk), I just can only see so many subtitled movies in a year. It takes a lot out of me when I am in a job that makes me pass out before 9pm most nights. But with Verhoeven directing as some sort of thriller? Where sex and violence might be brought up to 11? Sure, I will give it a shot.

If anything, it will still help me prepare for the Oscars.

Editor said I cannot make a reference about her reminding me of the hook lady from Boston Public, no one would get it.

And at the beginning, Michèle Leblanc (Isabelle Huppert) is raped. In her own home, by a man in a ski mask. She is the head of a video game company in France, with her business partner Anna (Anne Consigny). Her father was a serial killer, found out when she was a young girl, so she has been lashed out against all the time. This has led her to becoming a strong and successful woman, independent as fuck, so how could she be raped in her own damn house?

She doesn’t trust the police, given her childhood problems. So she doesn’t report it, confides in some friends, and goes about her business. After all, her game company has a deadline and they have to finish the product. But at the same time, she begins her own independent investigation as to the culprit. Could it be one of her angry workers? One of the many enemies she has outside of the job? Some pissed off citizen or neighbor?

Whoever it is, Elle is going to handle it on her own. While dealing with a son (Jonas Bloquet) who has grown up to be a little bitch, affairs, and more.

Also starring Christian Berkel, Judith Magre, Virginie Efira, Charles Berling, Alice Isaaz, and Laurent Lafitte.

Revenge is a dish best served with a cold weapon.

At its best, Elle is a slow burn that has a lot of subplots and a couple twisty moments to tell an over two hour story. At the same time, some of these slower moments and subplots do the obvious thing and slow the story down significantly.

All of the plot with the son and his baby? They do end up mattering, but it is a strange thing to watch until it becomes apparent. The extra parts about getting the game in on deadline? Well, besides red herrings, they bring a sense of realism to the story. Her relationship with her father? Well, that explains why Elle is so fucked up and police scared.

Despite wanting to complain that there are slower moments and slower scenes, on my own it is hard to find something that IS actual cut worthy and necessary, in order to tell the complete story.

Huppert gives a nuanced performance as our lead, having to deal with a lot of her internal struggles despite external forces pressing down on her. She has all of the baggage in the world, isn’t a perfect character, and sadistic.

A very interesting character study, despite getting bogged down in excessive story details (yes, that I am unable to pin point exactly. Shut up).

The Dressmaker is about someone who makes dresses.

Review done!

Oh, and it is from Australia! How exotic.

So god damn exotic up in this introduction.

Okay, okay, here are some more details. This takes place in a small outback town of Dungatar, a close knit, everyone knows everyone community. And Tilly (Kate Winslet) has returned to take care of her sick mother (Judy Davis). Tilly was sent out of the town at a young age, to live elsewhere. She became a really great maker of dresses and is ready to return to her roots.

But then she is called a murderer. What? Apparently she was banished for killing another kid at the local school house. The local head councillor (Shane Bourne) and father of the dead boy made the decision. But now that she is back, her home is in shambles and they call her mother mad. She doesn’t remember the circumstances around the boys death, but deems she needs to find out the truth.

What follows is romance, lies, outright bitchiness, competition, and more. Hell, once she starts getting people to accept her again, some higher ups go and bring in a rival dress maker (Sacha Horler) to stop her spread of good will

But even if Tilly finds out the truth of her past, will it make things better? Or is the town too spiteful and angry for there to ever really be a cure.

Also featuring Liam Hemsworth, Hugo Weaving, Julia Blake, Kerry Fox, and Rebecca Gibney.

The cop can’t arrest her for standing out in a crowd. Nor for looking fabulous.

The Dressmaker is not for the feint of heart. Wait, no, it is relatively mild. That’s not right. The Dressmaker is full of romance and wonder! Shit, that is wrong too.

Oh here it goes. The Dressmaker is a weird, quirky film. It is about small town life, but you know, Australian. And set in the 1950s or so. Those who grew up in small towns will be able to more readily relate to the gossipy nature of everything, regardless of country it is set in. It isn’t a completely unique element in film, but given that this movie deals with an old murder involving kids, it does sort of grow quite rampantly.

But really, the reason to watch this film would probably just be the dresses themselves. They are extravagant by any means, but look bizarre when compared to the dusty, small town, 1950s vibe. Just another quirky element of the movie, the juxtaposition of the fancy dresses with the poor farmer. They are quite wonderful and this film has potential, if any, to be nominated for costumes.

But outside of the dresses and some fun Winslet movies, it didn’t really offer me much more. The ending started to get carried away with itself, as everything suddenly happened much more quickly than the earlier pace of the film. Some crazy things happen, they keep happening, and then Winslet’s character goes out with a bang.

A bit of revenge, a bit of mystery, a lot of weird, and a movie that is forever going to be hard to recommend.

I didn’t know The Wild Life was coming out this year. I didn’t know it even really existed, to be honest. The Wild Life is a Belgian animated film, that has now been given some English voice actors and slapped down to America.

But this film had no advertising. I never saw a trailer, I barely saw the poster, and I would have never really known it was released today if it wasn’t for the fact that they sent me an invite to a screening.

Here is my guess. I just assume that this involves a group of 4-5 animals, who talk and go on wacky adventures together. You know, stuff from the first decade of the millennium.

Shit, there is at least six animals in this picture already, so I am already wrong.

This movie starts off with a group of pirates led by Long John Silver (Dennis O’Connor), seeing a signal fire on an island, taking the one man to their boat to find out his story. But screw that, the parrot, Mac (David Howard) has the better story.

Mac was living on a small island, bored out of his mind. He was friends with everyone on the island. Suspiciously, the entire island only had one of every animal only, except for bugs and fish. There is Rosie the Tapir (Laila Berzins), Epi the Echidna (Sandy Fox), Scrubby the Blind Goat (Joey Camen), Carmello the Chameleon (Colin Metzger), Pango the Pangolin (Jeff Doucette), and Kiki a blue bird thing (Marieve Herington).

Mac believes there is a world outside of the island, and when a ship crashes onto the island he finally has proof! And what is on that ship? Well, a dog (Doug Stone), some cats (I don’t know most of their names, but Kyle Hebert did one of them), and a man named Robinson Crusoe (Yuri Lowenthal). There they learn to live in harmony and trust, build sweet stuff and have good memories.

Oh and the cats are the jerk bad guys, because cats are assholes as we all know.

Yep, that dude is totally about to join an animal orgy.

I did not know I was watching a secret Robinson Crusoe movie. If I did, I might have been even more reluctant to go, and yes, I am comparing that to generic diverse talking animal adventure film. But it was called Robinson Crusoe in its original release and went for a cooler title, but one that really doesn’t describe the film at all now.

And technically this really has fuck all to do with the book. We have the character and a shipwreck, but everything is just a unique story at this point.

I ended up enjoying the animation style, the animals were all very detailed with their own basic personalities. I very much appreciated that the animals were basically given real names and not just called Goat-y and Tapira or shit like that (Pango aside). And even more exciting was that these characters were all voiced by non celebrities. Some of them are real voice work artists, some of them have only one IMDB actor credit, but none of them are big actors just to sell the movie, regardless of voice work talent. That is a nice change of pace.

The issues with the film are that the story is simple. Like, beyond simple. Survival wasn’t a real issue in the movie. Pirates barely mattered. No, it was all hunky-dory. The main issue was mean cats trying to survive off more than bugs, so you know, eventually they try to kill everyone. I fell asleep early on because it took so long to really get to the point. The decision to make 95% of the movie as a flashback is a poor tool, why not just start in the damn beginning.

And yes, I do get annoyed that this small island apparently has the most fruit food ever. And that it is never addressed why these six or so animals live here and none of them have mates or a real way to have gotten to that island. All of the nitpicking really boils down to is that they just didn’t really think this whole thing through or care about the holes that might exist.

The Wild Life will probably not be successful, because it isn’t Pixar and Disney. The animation was cool, the voice work was nice, but the story was too basic and not exciting enough to see again.

Anne of Green Gables, Little House on the Prairie, and Sarah, Plain and Tall are all books that were about women living in farming communities, simple lives, and totally kid friendly.

Sunset Song is not one of those things. It is about a girl, sure, a farm, yeah, but it isn’t American and it isn’t a nice and easy kid friendly book. It was a realistic novel and it is considered one of the greatest Scottish novels of the 20th century. Source: Wikipedia.

It is the type of thing that one would have imagined as a film thirty years ago but hey, better late than never.

Life doesn’t give a shit about your strength, there is still work to be done.

Chris Guthrie (Agyness Deyn) is almost a woman and living with her family. Her brother Will (Jack Greenlees) often comes to blows with their father (Peter Mullan), and by that, Will gets whipped still. They also have two younger siblings. Oh wait on that as well, despite her age, the mom (Daniela Nardini) is now pregnant again, with twins!

Now the family has to go and move to a bigger house and plantation. And with more space comes more problems. Depression and loneliness are a big part of it, and after a few events, it is just Chris, Will, and her father. And times are hard, money is scarce, people are jobless.

If I kept talking about the plot, I would describe more worse and worse situations. Including the start of World War I, yay!

So let’s just cut the chase, say life is hard, and introduce some more actors. Like Stuart Bowman, Douglas Rankine, and Kevin Guthrie.

Don’t be mad, just fill in the blanks and you can probably imagine all the bad stuff.

Sunset Song had a lot going for it. Apparently a great source material, a good an authentic feeling cast, gorgeous land and shots, and very uncomfortable moments. Because no one wants to see life on the farm if it is ordinary and boring. We need that bad stuff to happen to our cast in order to see some struggles and see heroes grow before our eyes.

Deyn knocks it out of the park in the leading role. She grows from an obedient oldest daughter to someone capable of running everything on her own. She is just a woman trying to suffer in a man’s world. And it is a terrible story to watch, which is why I love it so. I never got fully cry emotional, but I was still right there on her journey with her.

It is a long movie with a lot of scenes. It reinforced some aspects of World War I that I had recently learned, making it feel even more awesome. The soundtrack was also a delight, featuring some nice Scottish songs.

But what I didn’t like? The ending. It felt rushed (in a 140 minute film), and it ended on such a weird note. I have come to learn that the book is the first of a trilogy and in book form it might make sense, but as a film it just feels blah. “Is that it?” I asked my computer screen. I had felt like our main girl was suddenly no longer acting like herself. And it didn’t give any nice conclusion or anything.

So if there are more movies in the future? Fantastic, I would watch them. But I hate it when a movie doesn’t want to tell a whole complete story.

As a reminder, we have no age limit when it comes to Documentaries at Gorgon Reviews. They can be old as fuck and I might want to review them for my website. And some times, instead of a documentary, I will review a foreign film on a Thursday, just to keep things interesting.

In the case of The Ambassador, well, it isn’t super old, but it is 2011. Half a decade ago! But hey, it also happens to be a foreign documentary. That’s a double whammy here. I watched it with subtitles. Sometimes they spoke English, sometimes not English, but I read the whole dang thing. The reason I am watching The Ambassador is because I bought it blindly at a sale. It was a $3 Blu-Ray, so my deal alarms went off and I just snatched it up. If I didn’t watch it right away to review, that $3 value would have evaporated into thin air as the movie entered my DVD Case, most likely never to be seen again.

Shit, that just got dark. Hopefully The Ambassador is a cheery documentary about nice things and happy thoughts!

The Ambassador is about a real live journalist, Mads Brügger, from Denmark. I don’t know if he was famous before this documentary, I don’t know if he became famous after this documentary. But he wanted to talk about corruption in Africa and blood diamonds. He wanted to do some of that investigative journalism, putting his own butt on the line to tell the story. And tell the story he did! With hidden and visible cameras.

First thing I need to make clear is that Brügger is a man who was born in Denmark and lived there hist whole life. Sure he has traveled, but he is Danish through and through. Repetition of this fact is important, because to expose corrupt government officials, Brügger is going to become a political ambassador. Not from Denmark, but from Liberia, an African country, with his goal to become the Ambassador to the Central African Republic. A really ballsy goal. And a strange one.

This feels like a movie with that plot line. I already can’t believe this super white guy can do any of this.

But he blends in so naturally with the natives.

So how does any of this work out? Well, first, if you are stupidly wealthy and European, there are people who want to talk to you. You can pay an absurd amount of money to become an ambassador or consul of a poor struggling nation. The funds you pay go to the nation (And the people who broker the deal) and they have openings that need to be filled. Now of course, if you become a representative of a country, you can not just go and do illegal things. That will make them mad at you and bad things will happen.

But this is corruption we are talking about! Of course people will do bad things. But his idea is to go to the Central African Republic (CAR), pretend to want to set up a match making factory, but instead secretly get into the diamond business. Once he gets involved with diamond people, he can get uncut, unlicensed diamonds, sneak them out of the country to wherever he wants, and take them home. It isn’t easy, CAR is a dangerous country with government issues. But it isn’t super hard either. A lot of people are willing to help him out, because it means they can make money on the side as well.

And honestly, money is the greatest way to get things to go your way.

Needless to say, some of the things Brügger are able to do end up being quite shocking. By the end I was surprised. I was more surprised that this thing was even released, because certainly it will make government agents at various places around the world quite pissed off. And some rich people as well.

I am watching this film five years after the fact though. I don’t know if this documentary led to any change about anything. It is still crazy that just anyone (with money) could do something like that and gain some diplomatic immunity.

My biggest problem with this documentary though is that it is incredibly hard to really follow, especially early on. They talk to a whole lot of people, some of which are important, some of which are not. Names are hard to remember, which part of the process is happening gets confusing and it is just a struggle to keep up. I figured out most of it by the end…kind of. But man, I was lost constantly. I was scared to even write this review, wondering what I would say when I had to descrbe the movie.

The answer was keep it vague, stall in the beginning, and talk about how insane of an idea this was in the first place. Brügger could have been killed. He could be dead right now for all I know. But Journalism is sexy and sometimes you gotta take some risks.