
John Green reviews the recent film by Johan Grimonprez
Soundtrack to a Coup D’état is one of the most powerful documentaries I’ve seen in decades. It exposes imperialist machinations in Africa, namely the Congo during the 1960s, with forensic precision and cinematic panache. It also carries vital lessons and for us today in reacting to Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, the removal of Assad in Syria and the war in Ukraine, encouraging us to look beneath outward appearances and unmask the perpetrators of injustice.
Celebrated Belgian documentary filmmaker Johan Grimonprez once again interrogates history to unearth the truth beneath the accumulated debris of lies and obfuscation. Following his “Double Take” (2009), with a plot set during the Cold War, charting the rise of television in a domestic setting and the ensuing commodification of fear during the cold war, and his “Shadow World” (2017), an investigation into the multi-billion dollar international arms trade, he returned gain last year to the Sundance Film Festival with “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,” a shattering film essay that marries jazz and incendiary politics to unravel colonial machinations of power in the Congo.
Here, he draws fascinating connections between post-war jazz, US imperialism and the Pan-African decolonisation movement. Staccato beats and syncopation are the guiding principles of this hypnotic and harrowing film.
The Congo, formerly a Belgian colony was, and still is, rich in mineral resources, particularly uranium, so when it won nominal independence from Belgium under its charismatic leader, Patrice Lumumba in 1960, the West pulled out all the stops to maintain its hold over these vital resources. These stops included assassination plots, the use of mercenaries, mass murder, corruption and brutal suppression that continues to the present. The USA and the CIA were central to these machinations, but they also involved Belgium, Britain and compliant figures in the UN. Grimonprez documents all this with amazing footage, much of it never seen before.
One of the methods used by the USA was to co-opt black jazz luminaries from the US, including Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Nina Simone, as cultural ambassadors in order to project the image of an innocuous, music-loving and non-racist USA. These musicians were naively unaware of how they were being manipulated. Grimonprez uses musical clips of these greats of the jazz scene as linking elements and a thread throughout the film. While crowds of jubilant citizens were be-bopping and cheering to the music, behind the scenes murky plots were being hatched, planning the brutal destruction of the country’s liberation movement.
There’s a lot of ground to cover, but in 150 minutes, Grimonprez manages to chart how the Belgian monarchy, the US government, and mighty corporations colluded to assassinate Congo’s first black prime minister, Patrice Lumumba. Beforehand, Lumumba and other leaders from the Congo flew to Brussels to try and hammer out an independence agreement.
They were treated with arrogance and disdain by the Belgian government. To see the footage of that historic meeting tells us so much about colonialism. We see a row of old white men, their facial expressions more reminiscent of a gallery of stone gargoyles than of a living government, facing an all-black delegation from the Congo. On that occasion, the then Belgian foreign minister Paul Henri Spaak (a Socialist Party member) spoke to an interviewer and, without a hint of irony, asked, “why are they [the black people of the Congo] so ungrateful, after we brought them civilisation?”
Legendary African-American musicians like Dizzy Gillespie and Nina Simone were sent as decoys to deflect attention from America’s first African post-colonial coup, unbeknown to the actual artists of course. As the film notes, “America’s secret weapon is a blue note in a minor key.” The New York Times cites Louis Armstrong as “the country’s most effective ambassador”. Other artists were less naïve: drummer Max Roach and singer Abbey Lincoln with Maya Angelou and others drew inspiration from the independence movement in Africa to crash a Security Council session in protest.
Cutting between home movies, official texts, historical footage, and Lumumba’s speeches (which were once thought lost prior to the making of this film), “Soundtrack to a Coup d’État” uses an endless rhythm of rumba and jazz to weave this all together.
The film dispenses with any omniscient narration to speak of; the music becomes a character in itself. Editor Rik Chaubet seamlessly evokes joy and tension through a combination of visuals and sound, which makes it easier to digest the mountain of information.
It’s important to note that “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” isn’t a history lesson in the traditional sense. Grimonprez’s documentary also asks audiences to actively participate in piecing this history together and draw appropriate conclusions for today.
The film brings to light key voices of protest like Malcolm X, Miriam Makeba, Madame Andrée Blouin, and of course Lumumba himself, whose message is just as timely now as it was then. The charismatic black militant, Andrée Blouin became Lumumba’s adviser until she was arrested and expelled from the country before he was assassinated. She is another woman virtually forgotten by history, but celebrated this year by Verso which has just re-published her autobiography, “The Black Pasionaria”.
The film also documents Khrushchev’s passionate demand for decolonialisation and African liberation at the United Nations in New York, to remind us of the key role the Soviet Union played in that process. It is also good to be reminded of the Soviet UN resolution in 1960, demanding de-colonisation and independence for all colonial peoples and which was adopted by an overwhelming majority, but with the USA and UK abstaining. There are also endearing vignettes of Fidel Castro, Krishna Menon and President Sukarno among other leading liberation figures of the time. The imperialist nations were forced on the back foot and licked their wounds while planning bitter revenge for this storming of their own citadel.
Finally, the film cuts to modern-day footage shot in the Eastern Congo, 60 years later, where things have barely changed. Only the appearance has changed over time as international mining conglomerates and the imperialist countries continue to foment mayhem and murder to maintain this horrendous status quo.
It is a film that should be obligatory viewing for those in every institution studying African history.
“Soundtrack to a Coup d’État” premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.