Director: Johan Grimonprez

This impressively propulsive documentary essay from Belgian director Johan Grimonprez is a shocking expose of political interference that skips along to a syncopated jazz beat. Which shouldn’t work but somehow does. It follows the events following the post-colonial emergence of the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1960 and the efforts by former colonial rulers, Belgium, and the USA with the tacit support of the UN, to depose the democratically elected Patrice Lumumba. Simultaneously, it chronicles how jazz legends such as Louis Armstrong and Count Basie were recruited by the US government into the ‘Cool War’, a soft power campaign in which they toured the globe, including Russia, promoting American culture. Witnessing racist incidents at home, the Black American artists became disillusioned with the project. The picture’s commentary comes mainly from contemporary voices, mostly Black, but with British and American ex-secret service types chuckling chillingly about their parts in the game. Meanwhile, Blue Note sleeve-style graphics and suitably rhythmic editing keep the narrative swinging over its epic 150 minute running time. Despite the length, the picture feels like it is scratching the surface, and it creaks a little trying to bring the two narrative strands together, when each story would justify a film in its own right. Still, it’s a fascinating, righteous, and deftly assembled cri de cœur.

David Willoughby

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