It would be a big job to set side by side the story of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba’s murder with Louis Armstrong’s musical tour and the United Nations’ expansion after Africa was decolonized in the 1960s. But it’s even trickier to tell this convoluted tale, filled with multiple characters and plot twists, non-chronologically while filling the screen with written clues such as those found in an academic thesis’ bibliography. “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” is a difficult film for writer and director Johan Grimonprez but also a stunning success. It plays like a dense historical text crossed with a vibrant jazz concert, proving itself an invigorating piece of documentary filmmaking.
Grimonprez’s ambitious essay film covers much more than simply decolonization in Africa; it takes on global political and historical upheavals (including alleged involvement by the U.S. CIA) that dashed hopes for a united Global South during the height of the Cold War. Lumumba and Armstrong are just two players among many. The events begin with another radical African leader: Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt seizing control of the Suez Canal in 1956, and continue long past Lumumba’s death to demonstrate how much changed because of him.
The movie unfolds like history at its most melodramatic full of theatrics, heightened emotions and vivid personalities. This is politics as grand spectacle and ironic comedy: an original treatment of how young popular African leader got assassinated in coup so colonial powers can keep profiting from his country’s mineral wealth . “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” may be fun cinema, but it is also serious history telling us what happened when people were not looking closely enough or did not want to see at all . All these events unfold against background AMERICAN JAZZ MUSIC OF THE TIME, which only underlines the fact that the State Department used Armstrong and other Black musicians as decoys to divert attention from Lumumba’s murder while they were sent on tour around African countries in guise of goodwill ambassadors.
The melodrama comedy comes from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe in anger at United Nations, or telling musician Dizzy Gillespie’s 1964 campaign for presidency. Historical context is given by archive footage showing speeches of Malcolm X or Dwight Eisenhower. Additionally, Grimonprez uses parts of two books: activist Andrée Blouin’s “My Country, Africa,” who organized women during that period and Congo-based writer In Koli Jean Bofane’s “Congo Inc.,” which provides first-hand accounts from someone who lived through those events. These testimonies condense sprawling story into personal historical record.
Working with the editor Rik Chaubet, Grimonprez brings every one of these diverse components and characters to life by using jazz as a guide and structure, so he creates what may be called a filmic jazz piece. “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” is like jazz in many different ways, it ebbs and flows, sometimes in long solos–stories that are not directly related to the overall narrative that might initially seem jarring but quickly click into place as essential parts of the whole. The speeches and testimonials and archival footage all play off the rhythm of the musicians featured in the film; sometimes slow editing builds tension, other times quick cuts build toward catharsis. Think about Blouin’s testimony set against Nina Simone’s voice. It’s not just an excerpt from his memoir read over footage of him on screen; it’s a haunting story about pain and hope.
This is bold filmmaking confident enough to trust its audience with complex storytelling but also risky for potentially overwhelming viewers with too much information. Most risky, though it forces people watching this movie to engage with what they’re seeing. Connections aren’t always obvious. There is no mention, even tangentially, of today’s Congo yet we know exactly where history stands repeating itself here. Nobody leaves “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” not thinking about Africa (and specifically Congo) very differently.
“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” sounds like it could be overwhelming or academic or both, but it really isn’t either. This documentary is fun to watch while teaching you something new every minute about Lumumba’s murder (which was done at such an important moment). It’s complex yet subtle, there are so many threads woven together here that led up to Lumumba being killed by combining lots of different things which might have been shown on pieces of paper written by known people but this is not what they did so because jazz.
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