Soundtrack to a Coup d'État

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat relates not just Lumumba’s assassination but the larger role the Congo, a nation rich with natural resources, played in the Cold War, and the so-called Congo Crisis’ surprising intersections with midcentury American jazz.

It’s the quietly magisterial Fiennes who steals the show. Don’t be surprised to see white smoke billowing out of the Academy Awards come March.

It might manifest as a straightforward historical documentary, but the fascinating, hypnotic Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat unfolds into something much deeper -- and more sinister.

The effect, although lengthy at two-and-a-half hours, is dreamlike yet propulsive, a timeline that’s optimistic and sinister at the same moment.

This is a film which has a little of Oliver Stone in the way it inhales something eerie and sinister in the atmosphere, and it’s something to set alongside Leon Gast’s 1996 documentary When We Were Kings.

Provoking a bit of confusion is the point. Covert power relies on misdirection, and it is only by looking back that we can sometimes make sense of what happened. That’s why “Soundtrack” lands on a coda.

This is a very ambitious film that throws a lot of ideas at the viewer. It doesn't succeed in being a compelling or entertaining narrative, but it is impressive as a research project bundled in a novel multimedia package.

...one of the most profound, comprehensive and shocking documentaries of recent times. [Full review in Spanish]

It’s rollicking and energetic, and will sweep you up and keep you in its grip even when it begins to feel like too much packed into too small a space.

Grimonprez has tapped into an incredible intersection of time, place and players that he turns into an immersive experience that entertains and informs unlike any Wikipedia page or history book.