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‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’ Review: Innovative Doc Draws a Connection Between Jazz Music and the Assassination of Patrice Lumumba
In exceptional 'Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,' director Johan Grimonprez trusts audiences to follow every complicated nuance of a historical narrative.
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 of the American CIA — that led to the end of the dream of a united Global South during the height of the Cold War. This is politics presented as grand spectacle and ironic comedy: an original treatment of how a young popular African leader was assassinated in a coup d’etat so that colonial powers can keep profiting from his country’s mineral wealth. All of this plays to the rhythm of American jazz music of the time, to emphasize how the State Department used Armstrong and other Black musicians to deflect from Lumumba’s murder by sending them on a tour of African nations as goodwill ambassadors.
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