Archival footage from Patrice Lumumba is the crux for the politically motivated documentary ‘Soundtrack to a Coup d Etat’ and that footage portrays history, showcasing a future that was nabbed by the plague of colonialism. The movie uses jazz music to complement its use of biographies, political speeches, and newsreels.
On October 28 1960, Louis Armstrong was on a State Department tour in the African region and performed in Leopoldville, which was always reposted for the European aware audience, after performing in Congo, he came in contact with Armstrong, which was four months after the latter gained independence only four months back. Unfortunately, Armstrong’s performance followed by Lumumba’s murder soon became a reality.
Johan Grimonprez, the Belgian director of ‘Soundtrack to a Coup d Etat’ explains it all far more eloquently as he goes in detail regarding the collapse of the screwdriver movement, the peacemaking couple he delves in the construction of neverending resources the contradiction of socialist countries and western nations serve under, and how decades later, they haven’t fulfilled the promise.
Feeling the pang of history under Grominprez is riddled in truth; the United States and Western countries only view Congo as a piece of fabric waiting to be exploited rather than a nation with historical and cultural richness.
Grimonprez focuses on the extensive footage and writing on Lumumba and the idea of the United States of Africa aiming to inform the audience of how Congo gained independence and lost its leader. To support this narrative, he relies heavily on the concept fought by Garvey that is how did Congo gain its freedom to further strengthen his perspective on history, he ultimately ends up with his defeat. He follows a similar route as Raoul with his documentary which is where peck presented a strong leader in his work.
Where Grimonprez goes above and beyond is incorporating music into his work, and that is where he separates himself from Peck. “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” resembles a highly rotational film that begins in 1961, similar to jazz which was highly improvisational, it then shifts towards modern-day advertisements for Apple and Telsa. The list could go on for jazz legends that were in the murderer row such as Louis Armstrong, Abbey Lincoln, Max Roach, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, and Nina Simone, an entire ensemble that took center stage during the event. He skips over the biographical aspects of these historical icons, assuming that with their powerful enough presence and history, their simple existence is enough for a documentary, allowing to creation a highly pleasant atmosphere.
So in movies that require tons of reading which have excerpts from books like Maya Angelou’s The Heart of a Woman or Hugh Wilford’s, or Koli Jean Bofane’s Congo Inc.: Bismarck’s Testament or Hughes Wilford’s The Mighty Wurlitzer: How The CIA Played America, that tenor should be built-in as a requirement.
Grimonprez seems to be suggesting that Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal could have acted as a catalyst for other African nations, for example, the Congo. However, Grimonprez overall, paints a larger picture of how world powers would use assassinations or coups, during the Cold War, and Nasseer is just one of them. The film is able to portray how colonial rule is still affecting these nations, and as such has always been fighting for independence. The battle was always going to be challenging considering the leaders of the countries were always paranoid of losing the territory alongside the wealth.
The movie looks at the relationship present between these newly independent states from an unbiased perspective. Malcolm X states that whenever the Asian or African countries would unite, they would have an overwhelming presence on the voting floor at the UN, allowing them to easily vote the US, Britain, and Belgium out. In the feature-length video, Blouin is shown as helping mold women across Africa to become politically active even before she was appointed chief of protocol for Lumumba.
The perspectives offered by the film also attempt to lucidly relate in how the threats that were brought about by the mobilization of the masses caused panic for nations around the globe.
However, the film explains, that’s the reason why music, and in this case, jazz, was employed for political means, and this is one of the music forms where Grimonprez can exhibit a little ribald humor, more in introducing the Cabinet of jazz; he and editor Rik Chaubet can be much more witty, jumping from performance to history – the kind of history which seems patterned after an after middle of the night gig where performers just fish around for titles – and vice versa. For example, Ella Fitzgerald’s Lullaby of the Leaves recreates Nikita Khrushchev’s politically crafted image during his trip to America in 1959, where he was on a ‘spiritually’ important meeting with President Dwight Eisenhower. For instance, activities like for example during the visit of Nina Simone in Nigeria in 1961 under the auspices of the American Society of African Culture of which she did not know the CIA link practically if not hounding, pitted the girls against the regimes which these forms decorated imperialists.
But yes, this documentary’s brio is riveting even when “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat”, which is quite lengthy with a 150-minute running time, appears to lose steam.
This film encourages its viewers to totally grasp every note, clip, and quote as it deftly condenses innumerable information into a succinct piece of art. When it comes to the film, “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat”, it serves as an intricate work of reconciliation as well as reinvigoration, allowing Lumumba’s spirit to live on via exhibiting similar defiance alongside which political leader Lumumba stood for.
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