Soundtrack to a Coup D’etat

Programmers notes: What if one gripping historical documentary skillfully interwove the United States’ greatest export (jazz music) with its single worst (right-wing coups and political assassinations). One of the many astonishing things about Johan Grimonprez’s Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat is that the film never needs to stretch or labor to make these aspects of U.S. culture intersect: like the two sides of a button, these very different expressions of America were already connected, if diametrically opposed, without a need for needle or thread.

With gripping detail, Soundtrack meticulously tells the story of the shameful assassination of Patrice Lumumba as it played out on multiple stages: in the newly formed Republic of the Congo; behind the closed doors of the White House; among the supposedly retreating Belgian colonial elite; and in the halls of the United Nations. Like the best documentaries by Stanley Nelson and Sam Pollard, it brings history alive in riveting, palpable, and sometimes unflinchingly tragic ways; like The Black Power Mixtape 1967–1975, it delivers damning truths about our country from the perspective of another. You’ll walk away from this powerful documentary angered by what its incisive and comprehensive historical research reveals, while simultaneously enriched by the knowledge, perspective, and sonic beauty it transmits. 

— Eric Allen Hatch