"But did he have rhythm?" Madman Films has revealed the first look trailer for an acclaimed documentary film titled Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat, made by Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez. This film is an entrancing look back at a major moment in global politics during the Cold War, intertwining music history & pop culture with these events. Jazz & decolonization are entwined in this historical rollercoaster that led musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the Un Security Council in protest against the murder of Patrice Lumumba. After Lumumba was murdered in 1961, the US State Department swings into action by sending jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to Congo to deflect attention from the CIA-backed coup in the country. The doc features excerpts from My Country, Africa by Andrée Blouin (narrated by Marie Daulne aka Zap Mama), Congo Inc. by In Koli Jean Bofane, To Katanga & Back by Conor Cruise O’Brien (narrated...
- 5/5/2024
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Juxtaposing the story of the murder of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba with a musical tour of jazzman Louis Armstrong and with the expansion of the United Nations after the independence of many African countries in the 1960s might be tall order. Trickier still would be telling this complex story, full of many characters and plot swerves, in a nonlinear manner while filling the screen with written clues providing context like a bibliography of an academic thesis. Writer and director Johan Grimonprez sets himself a difficult task with “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,” yet accomplishes it with astonishing success. The film plays like both a dense historical text and a lively jazz concert while proving itself to be an invigorating piece of documentary filmmaking.
Touching on far more than the decolonization of Africa, Grimonprez’s ambitious essay film encompasses the political and historical upheavals the world over — including the alleged involvement...
Touching on far more than the decolonization of Africa, Grimonprez’s ambitious essay film encompasses the political and historical upheavals the world over — including the alleged involvement...
- 3/11/2024
- by Murtada Elfadl
- Variety Film + TV
Louis Armstrong arrived in the Congolese capital, Leopoldville (now known as Kinshasa), on October 28, 1960, armed with his trumpet and wiping sweat from his brow. His visit was part of a U.S. State Department-sponsored tour of Africa, an arrangement Armstrong felt ambivalent about. Still, the Congolese people gave Satchmo, as the American jazz trumpeter was known, a near royal welcome. Drummers and dancers carried him to his performance venue on a red chair, fashioned like a throne. Civilians cheered him on. Ten thousand people showed up to watch him play.
This was a momentous occasion, a storied event for the newly independent republic of the Congo. Four months before Armstrong came to play jazz, the country had freed itself from the colonial grip of Belgium to become one of the more than dozen postcolonial African nations formed in 1960. But the region was still plagued with problems, most of them stemming...
This was a momentous occasion, a storied event for the newly independent republic of the Congo. Four months before Armstrong came to play jazz, the country had freed itself from the colonial grip of Belgium to become one of the more than dozen postcolonial African nations formed in 1960. But the region was still plagued with problems, most of them stemming...
- 3/1/2024
- by Lovia Gyarkye
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Sundance Review: Soundtrack to a Coup d’État is a Vibrant, Complex, and Jazz-Infused Political Essay
It was Mark Twain who said, “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes,” which is one way of approaching Belgian filmmaker and multimedia artist Johan Grimonprez’s sprawling, jazz-infused Soundtrack to a Coup d’État. The political essay revisits 1960, a turbulent year in global affairs: Patrice Lumumba rises to power in Congo just as the United States, through the CIA-backed Voice of America radio network, aims to soften America’s image aboard, sending jazz musicians Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Nina Simone, Dizzy Gillespie, Abbey Lincoln, and Max Roach to tour the world. The film positions the jazz musicians as a kind of political cabinet while Gillespie envisions his own run for the White House on TV talk shows back home. It proceeds with a rather kinetic, defiant tone in which the jazz, breaking news, citations, and quotes interrupt the historical footage a more standard documentary may have primarily focused on.
- 2/9/2024
- by John Fink
- The Film Stage
Dag Hammarskjöld, the second Secretary-General of the United Nations and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, died in 1961. But questions surrounding his tragic passing in a plane crash, and his sexuality, refuse to die down.
“We know who he is, but we don’t know that much about him,” says director Per Fly, now bringing “Hammarskjöld – Fight for Peace” to the International Film Festival Rotterdam. His journals “Markings,” published posthumously, provided a way in.
“There he was, this powerful man, and yet his writings deal with loneliness and sacrifice. There was a fragile poet inside of a politician.”
With Beta Cinema on board, the film was produced by Patrick Ryborn for Unlimited Stories. Variety premieres the trailer here.
According to Fly, Hammarskjöld was also a man who couldn’t afford to love.
“Dag said: ‘I am not a homosexual.’ Of course he did – otherwise, he would go to jail. One time,...
“We know who he is, but we don’t know that much about him,” says director Per Fly, now bringing “Hammarskjöld – Fight for Peace” to the International Film Festival Rotterdam. His journals “Markings,” published posthumously, provided a way in.
“There he was, this powerful man, and yet his writings deal with loneliness and sacrifice. There was a fragile poet inside of a politician.”
With Beta Cinema on board, the film was produced by Patrick Ryborn for Unlimited Stories. Variety premieres the trailer here.
According to Fly, Hammarskjöld was also a man who couldn’t afford to love.
“Dag said: ‘I am not a homosexual.’ Of course he did – otherwise, he would go to jail. One time,...
- 1/24/2024
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez’s first feature, 1997’s Dial H-i-s-t-o-r-y, intertwined news footage of plane hijackings with voiceover readings of passages from Don DeLillo’s White Noise and Mao II—he’s no stranger to rendering sweeping diagnoses within unorthodox historical frameworks. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat re-examines the assassination of Patrice Lumumba; the Soundtrack portion of the title points to the film’s other main strand, the political roles of American jazz musicians during the period, ranging from unwittingly complicit—Louis Armstrong performed a show in the Congo unaware that he was providing cover for CIA actions—to actively dissident, with the film bookended by vocalist […]
The post Sundance 2024: Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, Nocturnes first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Sundance 2024: Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, Nocturnes first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/23/2024
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez’s first feature, 1997’s Dial H-i-s-t-o-r-y, intertwined news footage of plane hijackings with voiceover readings of passages from Don DeLillo’s White Noise and Mao II—he’s no stranger to rendering sweeping diagnoses within unorthodox historical frameworks. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat re-examines the assassination of Patrice Lumumba; the Soundtrack portion of the title points to the film’s other main strand, the political roles of American jazz musicians during the period, ranging from unwittingly complicit—Louis Armstrong performed a show in the Congo unaware that he was providing cover for CIA actions—to actively dissident, with the film bookended by vocalist […]
The post Sundance 2024: Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, Nocturnes first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Sundance 2024: Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, Nocturnes first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/23/2024
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
“The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo,” Langston Hughes wrote in his poem “Negro.” “They lynch me now in Texas.” The year was 1922, and racial segregation was the norm in the United States. Anti-Black racism in the South was such a millstone that the U.S. Senate failed to pass an NAACP-sponsored anti-lynching bill in January of that year, a list of simple protections that was prevented from coming to a vote due to filibusters.
Hughes’s poem is one piece of ephemera that comprises the massive tapestry that is Soundtrack to a Coup d’État. Director Johan Grimonprez’s documentary is primarily focused on the Democratic Republic of Congo and its struggle for independence from Belgian colonialism, during which time our government was using Black jazz musicians to, in its diplomatic tango with the Soviet Union, paint a portrait of American liberalism as benevolent.
The documentary focuses on...
Hughes’s poem is one piece of ephemera that comprises the massive tapestry that is Soundtrack to a Coup d’État. Director Johan Grimonprez’s documentary is primarily focused on the Democratic Republic of Congo and its struggle for independence from Belgian colonialism, during which time our government was using Black jazz musicians to, in its diplomatic tango with the Soviet Union, paint a portrait of American liberalism as benevolent.
The documentary focuses on...
- 1/23/2024
- by Greg Nussen
- Slant Magazine
Premiering out of Sundance’s World Cinema Documentary Competition, the impressionistic essay film “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” refracts the plot against Patrice Lumumba through a kaleidoscopic lens. Cutting between historical footage of the Un General Assembly and home movies shot in liberation-era Congo, weaving in a diverse set of perspectives, and setting the pace to a non-stop rhythm of bebop, rumba and classic jazz, director Johan Grimonprez evokes the euphoria of post-colonial possibility and the heartbreak of the dashed hopes and violent reprisals that would ensue.
“At first, I wanted to explore the colonial legacy of my own country,” says the Belgium-born Grimonprez. “I was already mesmerized by the story of Andrée Blouin, who was an independence leader, an advisor to [Ghana president] Kwame Nkrumah and chief of protocol for [first Congolese prime minister] Patrice Lumumba, but who was almost written out of history. And as a filmmaker, I like to explore those intimate stories within a wider,...
“At first, I wanted to explore the colonial legacy of my own country,” says the Belgium-born Grimonprez. “I was already mesmerized by the story of Andrée Blouin, who was an independence leader, an advisor to [Ghana president] Kwame Nkrumah and chief of protocol for [first Congolese prime minister] Patrice Lumumba, but who was almost written out of history. And as a filmmaker, I like to explore those intimate stories within a wider,...
- 1/17/2024
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
Since its conception and rise to international acclaim, the multi-award-winning Have You Heard George’s Podcast? has transcended any genre. In this gripping new chapter titled After Empire, George The Poet presents a compelling exploration of African history through the lens of Cold War intrigue; a true crime saga weaving in poetry, music and archive footage with George’s characteristically stylish and soulful storytelling.
Coinciding with Black History Month, George takes a deep dive into the African independence movements of the 1960s, telling poignant tales of struggle and sacrifice that have framed some of the most important and least discussed events of the last six decades, from the perspective of some of history’s unsung heroes.
We travel in time to hear stories about fascinating people like Patrice Lumumba, the independence leader and the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president.
Coinciding with Black History Month, George takes a deep dive into the African independence movements of the 1960s, telling poignant tales of struggle and sacrifice that have framed some of the most important and least discussed events of the last six decades, from the perspective of some of history’s unsung heroes.
We travel in time to hear stories about fascinating people like Patrice Lumumba, the independence leader and the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president.
- 10/6/2023
- Podnews.net
This interview was originally published in the Notebook Cannes Special, a limited-edition print publication distributed at the Cannes Film Festival. Read this week's Rushes to learn more.Souleymane Cissé. Photograph courtesy of Mahamadou Coulibaly.The cinematic oeuvre of the monumental Malian filmmaker Souleymane Cissé, this year’s recipient of the Carrosse d’Or, describes and names itself. The unassuming poetry of the titles of his three most recognized films, Baara, Finyè, and Yeelen, harmonize the artistic and political orientation of a filmmaking trajectory shaped around labor, beauty, and transformation. Cissé was born in Bamako in 1940, encountering cinema as a child and captivated from the first instance, eventually joining the ranks of African filmmakers emerging in concert with the 1960s decolonization and national liberation struggles on the continent.A drama about a rural and an urban worker which doubles as a searing diagnosis of the labor movement in Mali, Baara is...
- 5/17/2023
- MUBI
Flanders Image, the promotional arm of the Vaf film fund of Belgium’s Flemish-speaking community, has unveiled the 80 projects selected for its annual Connext showcase, running as a hybrid event from October 10-24.
The showcase, which will hold a physical component in Antwerp from October 9-11, unfolds against the backdrop of a high-profile year for Belgian film and the cinema of its Flemish-speaking community in particular.
Lukas Dhont’s Close won Cannes Grand Prize and is now a frontrunner in the best international film category of the Oscars as Belgium’s submission; while Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch clinched Cannes Jury Prize for Italian-language drama The Eight Mountains (ex-acquo with Jerzy Skolimowski’s Eo).
Rebel, the homecoming film of Bad Boys For Life directorial duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, has also been making waves internationally after debuting Out of Competition at Cannes.
These films were all showcased at previous editions of Connext.
The showcase, which will hold a physical component in Antwerp from October 9-11, unfolds against the backdrop of a high-profile year for Belgian film and the cinema of its Flemish-speaking community in particular.
Lukas Dhont’s Close won Cannes Grand Prize and is now a frontrunner in the best international film category of the Oscars as Belgium’s submission; while Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch clinched Cannes Jury Prize for Italian-language drama The Eight Mountains (ex-acquo with Jerzy Skolimowski’s Eo).
Rebel, the homecoming film of Bad Boys For Life directorial duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, has also been making waves internationally after debuting Out of Competition at Cannes.
These films were all showcased at previous editions of Connext.
- 10/3/2022
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez, who examined the ties between the international arms industry and Western political establishments in his recent documentaries, the award-winning “Shadow World” and “Blue Orchids,” is set to explore its impact in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in his new project, “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat.”
Grimonprez and producer Daan Milius are presenting the project at the Copenhagen Documentary Film Festival’s Cph:Forum financing and co-production event, which runs April 26-30.
“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” looks back at the hopeful rise of Patrice Lumumba, who became the first prime minister of the newly independent Congo in 1960, only to be deposed a few months later and executed the following year. Lumumba, who is also the subject of a new feature film project, had alarmed Belgium and the United States with his assertions that Congo’s riches should belong to the country’s people. He...
Grimonprez and producer Daan Milius are presenting the project at the Copenhagen Documentary Film Festival’s Cph:Forum financing and co-production event, which runs April 26-30.
“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” looks back at the hopeful rise of Patrice Lumumba, who became the first prime minister of the newly independent Congo in 1960, only to be deposed a few months later and executed the following year. Lumumba, who is also the subject of a new feature film project, had alarmed Belgium and the United States with his assertions that Congo’s riches should belong to the country’s people. He...
- 4/24/2021
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
U.S.-based production company Congo Rising is preparing “Patrice Lumumba,” a film on the life of the Congolese leader who was assassinated in 1961.
Lumumba, the leader of the Congolese National Movement party, was instrumental in securing Congo’s independence from Belgium and became the new republic’s first Prime Minister in 1960. However, after a a political struggle that involved the Belgian government, the U.N., Soviet Union and the U.S., Lumumba was deposed within a few months of his assuming power and was subsequently executed in 1961.
Lumumba was held in great esteem by top U.S. civil rights leaders as Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, who called him “the greatest Back man to ever walk on the African continent.”
The film will be directed, co-written and co-produced by Tshoper Kabambi Kashala (“Heart of Africa”), co-written by Veron Okavu On’Okundji and co-written and produced by Congo Rising’s Margaret Blair Young.
Lumumba, the leader of the Congolese National Movement party, was instrumental in securing Congo’s independence from Belgium and became the new republic’s first Prime Minister in 1960. However, after a a political struggle that involved the Belgian government, the U.N., Soviet Union and the U.S., Lumumba was deposed within a few months of his assuming power and was subsequently executed in 1961.
Lumumba was held in great esteem by top U.S. civil rights leaders as Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, who called him “the greatest Back man to ever walk on the African continent.”
The film will be directed, co-written and co-produced by Tshoper Kabambi Kashala (“Heart of Africa”), co-written by Veron Okavu On’Okundji and co-written and produced by Congo Rising’s Margaret Blair Young.
- 1/28/2021
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Fred Zinnemann’s counter-assassination thriller remains topflight filmmaking, torn from reality and shot through with an unsentimental dose of political realism. Edward Fox’s implacable killer outwits the combined resources of an entire nation as he stalks his prey, and when bad luck forces him to improvise, he racks up more victims on his kill list. Step aside Bond, Bourne and Marvel — the original Jackal is the man to beat.
The Day of the Jackal
Blu-ray
Arrow Video USA
1973 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 143 min. / Street Date September 25, 2018 / Available from Arrow Video / 39.95
Starring: Edward Fox, Michel Lonsdale, Delphine Seyrig, Cyril Cusack, Eric Porter, Tony Britton, Alan Badel, Michel Auclair, Tony Britton, Maurice Denham, Vernon Dobtcheff, Olga Georges-Picot, Timothy West, Derek Jacobi, Jean Martin, Ronald Pickup, Jean Sorel, Philippe Léotard, Jean Champion, Michel Subor, Howard Vernon.
Cinematography: Jean Tournier
Film Editor: Ralph Kemplen
Second Unit Director: Andrew Marton
Original Music: Georges Delerue
Written...
The Day of the Jackal
Blu-ray
Arrow Video USA
1973 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 143 min. / Street Date September 25, 2018 / Available from Arrow Video / 39.95
Starring: Edward Fox, Michel Lonsdale, Delphine Seyrig, Cyril Cusack, Eric Porter, Tony Britton, Alan Badel, Michel Auclair, Tony Britton, Maurice Denham, Vernon Dobtcheff, Olga Georges-Picot, Timothy West, Derek Jacobi, Jean Martin, Ronald Pickup, Jean Sorel, Philippe Léotard, Jean Champion, Michel Subor, Howard Vernon.
Cinematography: Jean Tournier
Film Editor: Ralph Kemplen
Second Unit Director: Andrew Marton
Original Music: Georges Delerue
Written...
- 9/18/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Just when we thought we'd seen it all from the Black Panther cast and crew, director Ryan Coogler left us in awe once again. During Sunday night's Bet Awards, Ryan and Michael B. Jordan accepted the award for best movie, but it was Ryan's moving speech that had the entire crowd applauding. After thanking everyone responsible for the film's immense success and giving a shout-out to Black Twitter, he had one request for his fans.
Related: Sorry to Interrupt, but Michael B. Jordan Dancing at the Bet Awards Needs Your Attention
"If you can travel to Africa, go," he said. "And if you can't go, teach your children about Patrice Lumumba, Jomo Kenyatta, and all the amazing Africans that we attach to still as African Americans here today." Not only is he responsible for one of the most significant movie releases ever, but Ryan wants fans to learn about African history,...
Related: Sorry to Interrupt, but Michael B. Jordan Dancing at the Bet Awards Needs Your Attention
"If you can travel to Africa, go," he said. "And if you can't go, teach your children about Patrice Lumumba, Jomo Kenyatta, and all the amazing Africans that we attach to still as African Americans here today." Not only is he responsible for one of the most significant movie releases ever, but Ryan wants fans to learn about African history,...
- 6/26/2018
- by Perri Konecky
- Popsugar.com
"Nobody knows what happened that night in Katanga," and so begins a tremendously important film about the first elected prime minister of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, who served for mere months in 1960 and was permanently removed under still-mysterious circumstances 40 years ago Wednesday.
Incredibly, Haitian director Raoul Peck's often brilliant, utterly absorbing "Lumumba" screened Monday afternoon at the Nortel Palm Springs International Film Festival in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Virtually at the same moment, Congolese President Laurent Kabila, a Lumumba follower and controversial strongman, was reported assassinated in what might be a coup and what might escalate a three-year conflict that some have called Africa's first world war.
A Zeitgeist Films release for summer that couldn't possibly be timelier for educating American audiences about the miserable legacy of European colonialism and Cold War politics, "Lumumba" is serious and disturbing. There's a large cast of historical figures, including a chilling portrait of Mobutu Sese Seko (nee Joseph Mobutu), the general who came to power in a 1965 coup, changed the name of the country to Zaire and was finally overthrown by the forces of Kabila in 1997.
The film opens with a depiction of Lumumba's ignominious fate -- his body and the corpses of two companions are hacked up and burned by two Belgian soldiers one Windy Night far away from any witnesses. With a voice-over of the French-speaking Lumumba (Eric Ebouaney) from beyond death's door -- the film's one notable break from a stringently realistic approach -- the nearly two-hour film skips his early life and begins in earnest when the passionate activist first becomes a popular leader in Stanleyville (now Kisangani).
The very complex historical events are deftly illuminated given the potentially huge cast (President Eisenhower, President Kennedy, U.N. secretary general Dag Hammarksjold, Ernesto "Che" Guevara) and mountains of material. In the film's accompanying publicity, Peck (who made the documentary "Lumumba, Death of a Prophet") details how the project evolved, including early screenplay drafts that worked in the cliche of a white character to help open up the story to nonethnic audiences.
Thankfully, Peck and co-writer Pascal Bonitzer stay focused on the key events and such relationships as that of Lumumba with the Congo's first president, Joseph Kasavubu (Maka Kotto), as the two try to hold the country together against difficult odds. Lumumba and Kasavubu were elected by popular vote in the large, fractious country rich in natural resources soon after independence from Belgium. As so horrifically burned in Western conscience by Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", Belgium ruthlessly exploited the Congo for most of the 80 years it claimed it as a colony (think the city of Los Angeles ruling over the state of Texas in terms of size difference) and to this day has close ties with the country.
After imprisonment and torture for organizing opposition, Lumumba is allowed to attend the conferences in Brussels that made independence a thorny reality. With a faithful wife (Mariam Kaba) and child who he fatefully refuses to abandon when his dream of leading a united Congo comes crashing down, Lumumba becomes the enemy of powerful regional strongmen Godefroid Munungo (Dieudonne Kabongo) and Moise Tshombe (Pascal Nzonzi).
From an immediate post-election problem controlling the white officer-led national armed forces to an inability to keep his enemies from making deals with the CIA and other outside interests while himself reluctant to turn to the USSR for aid because he fears for his own life, Lumumba is swiftly and ruthlessly backed into a corner with no hope of escape. The film pulls no punches in placing the blame on Kasavubu, Kennedy and Godefroid Munungo (Dieudonne Kabongo), whose Katanga province is where Lumumba is taken to after a desperate flight from house arrest in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa).
Despite the presence of new faces in nearly every scene and a flurry of names and places, "Lumumba" rates as one of the most accomplished and vital historical films to be made in a long time that also succeeds as a fully engaging moviegoing experience. The performances are outstanding. Ebouaney is dominating, and one comes to completely sympathize with this intelligent, principled man. Among many stirring highlights is Lumumba's broadcast speech in Brussels that addressed Belgium's past crimes, though one can feel his fate being sealed even at this triumphant moment.
In French and Lingala with English subtitles and filmed in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Belgium, "Lumumba" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, but one sorely recommended special engagement is an immediate screening for incoming diplomats and national-level elected leaders, including Secretary of State nominee Colin Powell and his boss.
LUMUMBA
Zeitgeist Films
JBA Prods.
Director: Raoul Peck
Screenwriters: Raoul Peck, Pascal Bonitzer
Executive producer: Jacques Bidou
Director of photography: Bernard Lutic
Production designer: Denis Renault
Editor: Jacques Comets
Costume designer: Charlotte David
Music: Jean-Claude Petit
Casting: Sylvie Brochere
Color/stereo
Cast:
Patrice Lumumba: Eriq Ebouaney
Joseph Mobutu: Alex Descas
Maurice Mpolo: Theophile Moussa Sowie
Joseph Kasavubu: Maka Kotto
Godefroid Munungo: Dieudonne Kabongo
Moise Tshombe: Pascal Nzonzi
Pauline Lumumba: Mariam Kaba
Running time -- 115 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Incredibly, Haitian director Raoul Peck's often brilliant, utterly absorbing "Lumumba" screened Monday afternoon at the Nortel Palm Springs International Film Festival in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Virtually at the same moment, Congolese President Laurent Kabila, a Lumumba follower and controversial strongman, was reported assassinated in what might be a coup and what might escalate a three-year conflict that some have called Africa's first world war.
A Zeitgeist Films release for summer that couldn't possibly be timelier for educating American audiences about the miserable legacy of European colonialism and Cold War politics, "Lumumba" is serious and disturbing. There's a large cast of historical figures, including a chilling portrait of Mobutu Sese Seko (nee Joseph Mobutu), the general who came to power in a 1965 coup, changed the name of the country to Zaire and was finally overthrown by the forces of Kabila in 1997.
The film opens with a depiction of Lumumba's ignominious fate -- his body and the corpses of two companions are hacked up and burned by two Belgian soldiers one Windy Night far away from any witnesses. With a voice-over of the French-speaking Lumumba (Eric Ebouaney) from beyond death's door -- the film's one notable break from a stringently realistic approach -- the nearly two-hour film skips his early life and begins in earnest when the passionate activist first becomes a popular leader in Stanleyville (now Kisangani).
The very complex historical events are deftly illuminated given the potentially huge cast (President Eisenhower, President Kennedy, U.N. secretary general Dag Hammarksjold, Ernesto "Che" Guevara) and mountains of material. In the film's accompanying publicity, Peck (who made the documentary "Lumumba, Death of a Prophet") details how the project evolved, including early screenplay drafts that worked in the cliche of a white character to help open up the story to nonethnic audiences.
Thankfully, Peck and co-writer Pascal Bonitzer stay focused on the key events and such relationships as that of Lumumba with the Congo's first president, Joseph Kasavubu (Maka Kotto), as the two try to hold the country together against difficult odds. Lumumba and Kasavubu were elected by popular vote in the large, fractious country rich in natural resources soon after independence from Belgium. As so horrifically burned in Western conscience by Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", Belgium ruthlessly exploited the Congo for most of the 80 years it claimed it as a colony (think the city of Los Angeles ruling over the state of Texas in terms of size difference) and to this day has close ties with the country.
After imprisonment and torture for organizing opposition, Lumumba is allowed to attend the conferences in Brussels that made independence a thorny reality. With a faithful wife (Mariam Kaba) and child who he fatefully refuses to abandon when his dream of leading a united Congo comes crashing down, Lumumba becomes the enemy of powerful regional strongmen Godefroid Munungo (Dieudonne Kabongo) and Moise Tshombe (Pascal Nzonzi).
From an immediate post-election problem controlling the white officer-led national armed forces to an inability to keep his enemies from making deals with the CIA and other outside interests while himself reluctant to turn to the USSR for aid because he fears for his own life, Lumumba is swiftly and ruthlessly backed into a corner with no hope of escape. The film pulls no punches in placing the blame on Kasavubu, Kennedy and Godefroid Munungo (Dieudonne Kabongo), whose Katanga province is where Lumumba is taken to after a desperate flight from house arrest in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa).
Despite the presence of new faces in nearly every scene and a flurry of names and places, "Lumumba" rates as one of the most accomplished and vital historical films to be made in a long time that also succeeds as a fully engaging moviegoing experience. The performances are outstanding. Ebouaney is dominating, and one comes to completely sympathize with this intelligent, principled man. Among many stirring highlights is Lumumba's broadcast speech in Brussels that addressed Belgium's past crimes, though one can feel his fate being sealed even at this triumphant moment.
In French and Lingala with English subtitles and filmed in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Belgium, "Lumumba" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, but one sorely recommended special engagement is an immediate screening for incoming diplomats and national-level elected leaders, including Secretary of State nominee Colin Powell and his boss.
LUMUMBA
Zeitgeist Films
JBA Prods.
Director: Raoul Peck
Screenwriters: Raoul Peck, Pascal Bonitzer
Executive producer: Jacques Bidou
Director of photography: Bernard Lutic
Production designer: Denis Renault
Editor: Jacques Comets
Costume designer: Charlotte David
Music: Jean-Claude Petit
Casting: Sylvie Brochere
Color/stereo
Cast:
Patrice Lumumba: Eriq Ebouaney
Joseph Mobutu: Alex Descas
Maurice Mpolo: Theophile Moussa Sowie
Joseph Kasavubu: Maka Kotto
Godefroid Munungo: Dieudonne Kabongo
Moise Tshombe: Pascal Nzonzi
Pauline Lumumba: Mariam Kaba
Running time -- 115 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 1/19/2001
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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