Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat

From the opening moments of Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat, something is different. After the production credits, the film intercuts between a studio performance of "Triptych: Prayer/Protest/Peace" by Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln, and a stark intertitle with quotes from The Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou concerning a collective decision to march down to the UN. It's capped off by a quote from Lincoln herself appearing beside her mournful, singing face: "Our brother Lumumba has been killed in the Congo...". If there's any question as to who did the killing, the next shot features a European man being interviewed about what it feels like to kill. He's soon revealed to be a mercenary who was active in the Congo in 1964, a few years after the comments in Angelou's book. After which we quickly move through the introduction to a handful of jazz luminaries, Nikita Khruschev dismissing jazz as "cacophony", Louis Armstrong being dispatched to the Congo as a "jazz ambassador", and are introduced to Patrice Lumumba himself asserting that he's not a communist, but an African.

Unlike other films which set the scene with chaos, the breakneck pace never lets up. For one-hundred and fifty minutes, archival footage, audio, and book excerpts are scored by jazz performances and interviews to tell the story of the Congo's fight for democracy, achieved on June 30, 1960, before it was quickly neutered in favor of a Western-backed military dictatorship. It's the presentation of a Western conspiracy, led by a Belgium which never intended to grant their former colony true independence. Their efforts were granted tremendous assistance by the US and President Eisenhower, and further supported by a heavily manipulated and corrupt UN.

This isn't exactly news, of course. It's well known that the winding down of formal colonialism in Africa hasn't prevented Western nations from meddling in its country's affairs, with the Congo a key example. The vast majority of the sources for this film were contemporaneous to the events described, demonstrating just how blatantly obvious their actions were from the very beginning. Yet it still managed to sink to the bottom of our collective consciousness, a topic most people are left to discover for themselves on niche history podcasts.

What is new is the presentation, at least amongst mainstream film. Soundtrack is the most visible example of remix culture in documentary in recent memory. It's a form with a long legacy which director Johan Grimonprez has experimented with since his 1997 debut dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y. My personal introduction was 1986's RocketKitCongoKit by the brilliant underground filmmaker Craig Baldwin. Its juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated images as an approach to critique immediately gripped me, as fascinating as it was illuminating. So to see Grimonprez refine the form's aggressively alienating aesthetic so successfully that it's received widespread acclaim, even landing a nomination for Best Documentary Feature, is beyond thrilling.

Not only that, but such a fast-paced piece of art is perfectly pitched for our modern media environment. As the "talking heads" documentary has garnered more and more disinterest despite its continued prevalence, the rise of alternative styles is notably. These reach beyond the simple desire to entertain or inform, but to call into question the very structure and assumptions made by viewers of the genre. I think of 1968's Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One and 1973's F for Fake, although the history certainly extends beyond them. These explorations seek to engage you on the subject matter, to render it impossible to think about it without pondering the manner in which the message was delivered.

It helps that Grimonprez has picked a rich topic with many depths to be plumbed. The lively editing aims to recreate the whirlwind of events as they felt in real time, playing out with an astonishing speed that speaks to how resolutely the West was never going to let the Congo truly stand alone. Of course, noting the minuscule distance of key events from the date of Congolese independence helped to drive home how fast it all came apart.

Framing the opposition around Khrushchev's tour of the US and subsequent admonishing of the West at the UN helps keep the story on track. Whereas the frenetic pace threatens to take things off the rails, regularly coming back to Khrushchev decrying Western imperialism helps remind us why we're here. It gives context to the later involvement of Fidel Castro in raising the voices of the Congolese people. Maybe most importantly, it further highlights why Black leaders such as Malcolm X and the heavyweights of the jazz scene were so supportive of Lumumba and the United States of Africa, and consequently so devastated by his fate. They were all aligned against imperialism, against the dirty tactics employed by Western governments to infiltrate their organizations and disrupt any march towards progress, and to deny freedom to anyone who dared oppose them.

Here in the new year, as Soundtrack became available for home viewing, its spotlight on the abuses inherent in imperialism could barely be more relevant. For the first time in at least a generation, the leaders of the US are nakedly talking about expansionism and openly bullying other nations. Surveillance of the population is easier than ever, which has become more concerning the as various internet giants kowtow to the wannabe fascist inhabiting Pennsylvania Avenue. It's a visceral and timely reminder of what our government is capable of in less chaotic times, and how wiling other powers are to turn a blind eye to the abuses of their peers. Of how the best the UN can be is a platform for smaller nations to raise the alarm while everyone else condescendingly ignores them, although it's more likely to be a tool to prop up the status quo under a veneer of progressivism.

Grimonprez offers no solace, no comfort, no solution. He's shown us the world the way it is: it's up to us to do something about it.