Mutale Kampuni swings through history in this review of Soundtrack to a Coup d’État.
It’s a fresh dawn for the African freedom movement, as newly independent African states are admitted to membership of the United Nations. The 2024 documentary examines the complex web of intrigue surrounding Patrice Lumumba’s murder, demystifying events in the region from the late 1950s and early 1960s.
This film gives a platform to a wide range of perspectives. The narrative follows the journey of Irish diplomat Conor Cruise O’Brien, who was in the Katanga region working under the United Nations. His nephew, Patrick Cruise O’Brien, narrates the action, alongside the Belgian-Congolese writer In Koli Jean Bofane. Politician and women’s rights activist Andrée Blouin, and Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union, also lend their voices as commentators and participants in history in the making.
The viewer is taken on a voyage of colonialism, assassination plots, and jazz in the Congo. This culminates when drummer Max Roach, author Maya Angelou, singer Abbey Lincoln, and sixty others storm the UN Security Council in protest of the murder of Patrice Lumumba. He was the popular and democratically elected leader of the Congo who was tortured before he was killed.
European governments—most notably Belgium—and America colluded in the continued plunder of mineral resources in Africa. They promoted their own agenda while purporting to act in the best interests of former colonies. Congo was the main target due to its large reserves of uranium, the chief component in the manufacturing of the atomic bomb. Throughout this film, there are ads placed for iPhones and Tesla models. The resources needed in their manufacturing perpetuate the exploitation of communities in the region. These communities gain nothing, despite the wealth of their ancestral land.
There is fear among the West that African countries will secure the majority vote against former colonial powers and take over control of the UN. This sets in motion plans to thwart this advance. They pit African leaders against each other, bribing, dividing, and ruling. Other members of the UN—leaders from Asian countries (India and Indonesia)—refuse to serve as bystanders and join the anti-colonial chorus. Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev joins them as an ally. The Belgians label Lumumba a communist to get the United States on their side. Lumumba himself states at the start of the film: “I’m not a communist. I’m actually an African, I’m a nationalist. I’m coming up to choose the destiny of my own country.”
The CIA is instrumental in executing the plan to win over the African people. They send Louis Armstrong and other jazz musicians to distract while they plot Lumumba’s downfall. The musicians are oblivious to the CIA’s machinations but begin to question their own existence as second-class citizens in their own country, the US. Civil rights activist Malcolm X is open in his support of Lumumba and expounds the creation of a United States of Africa, together with Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. He highlights the idea that the absence of freedom for Americans of African descent is not only a civil rights violation but an infringement of their human rights. This is the case to be presented to the UN.
Against a background of the Cold War, the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries question the US’s record on human rights violations on their own doorstep. Khrushchev, is highly critical of what he sees. He calls for the end of colonisation across the world and derides the US’s racist and segregationist laws. He expresses disdain and emphasises his point by banging a shoe on his desk during a meeting of the UN General Assembly—to the amusement of some and the annoyance of others.
Soundtrack to a Coup d’État notes one courageous woman who was, to all intents and purposes, Patrice Lumumba’s right-hand woman. Andrée Blouin, a multi-talented speechwriter and orator, was able to stand her ground in the face of tragedy and very challenging circumstances. She championed better lives for women and children, to the extent of endangering her own. Her role as an African freedom fighter is worthy of a biopic in its own right.
This film is put together wholly with archival material and footage, including extracts from interviews and references from written texts and historical records. It evokes memories of a bygone era with the top class of jazz masters of the day, headlined by no less than Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Nina Simone, amongst others. The cast are characters who are playing themselves. The plot combines emotive subjects of slavery, oppression, and human rights abuses of black people in America, colonial domination in Africa, and the impact of the Cold War.
Johan Grimonprez, Soundtrack to a Coup d’État’s writer and director, spent a long time learning and conducting research on this particular era in African history. The film has been nominated for numerous awards around the world, including the Special Jury Award for Cinematic Innovation at the Sundance Film Festival. Among the numerous awards and accolades under his belt are the Black Pearl Award for Best New Documentary Director and First Prize in the European Media Award.
Soundtrack is one of the most engaging films I’ve seen in many years—my attention was held from beginning to end. Being from the part of Africa where these events played out, I was aware of the murder of Patrice Lumumba from a young age, but it was like a fable or myth that could not be understood.
Soundtrack to a Coup d’État is available to stream online now.
