Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat
| Release Date: November 1, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
91
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Screen DailyWendy IdeDec 3, 2024
It’s a remarkable film – exhaustive, informative and rigorously researched, but also crackling with energy , ideas and formal daring. Read full review
100
VarietyMurtada ElfadlDec 1, 2024
Writer and director Johan Grimonprez sets himself a difficult task with Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, yet accomplishes it with astonishing success. The film plays like both a dense historical text and a lively jazz concert while proving itself to be an invigorating piece of documentary filmmaking. Read full review
100
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeNov 18, 2024
Informative, exhaustively researched, but never dry or didactic, this is a phenomenal achievement by Grimonprez, who holds his own country to account for its shameful role in this sorry tale. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleNov 18, 2024
It’s a dazzling, tune-filled collage of images, words and sounds, recounting the moment during the Cold War when Congolese independence, hot jazz and geopolitical tensions made a sound heard around the world. But also, how that music was muffled by lethal instruments of capitalism and control, still a factor on the global stage. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalZachary BarnesNov 1, 2024
The film, with its dazzling musical energy, its complex narrative sweep and its dizzying cast of characters, finally emerges as a tragedy: a story of promises broken and trust betrayed, echoing into our own era with all the force and feeling of a ballad from Armstrong’s horn. Read full review
100
The New York TimesAlissa WilkinsonOct 31, 2024
In making Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, the director Johan Grimonprez used every instrument cinema affords. His documentary is rhythmic and propulsive, with reverberating sound and images juxtaposed against one another to lend more meaning. The result, in a word, is marvelous. Read full review
91
The PlaylistChristian GallichioDec 3, 2024
Even if the film threatens to bustle over with ideas, the Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat format deftly juggles several narrative threads, making history feel more alive — and in sync — than many other documentaries of its kind. Read full review
90
ColliderElisa GuimarãesFeb 12, 2025
Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat is a film essential to understanding the world. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesJan 2, 2025
A dense, challenging piece, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat is more associative than explicative. Read full review
88
Movie NationRoger MooreFeb 13, 2025
Make no mistake, “Soundtrack” is a real work of art, an historic film painted with extant footage, a fresh interview or two, sound from many sources and thoughts, facts and opinions from a wide range of people with a stake in not just events back then, but the urgent need to have those facts preserved and honestly served up to those of us trapped in the present. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comRobert DanielsNov 1, 2024
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat succeeds as an intense piece of reclamation and rejuvenation, giving breath to Lumumba’s spirit by sporting the same kind of defiance the political leader espoused. Read full review
83
IndieWireDavid OpieDec 3, 2024
Without any omniscient narration to speak of, the music becomes a character in of itself, connecting all the various media and many different perspectives into one cohesive whole. Read full review
83
The Film StageJohn FinkFeb 9, 2024
Where the sprawling, knotty, and thoroughly captivating Soundtrack to a Coup d’État sheds new light is in its form, exploring a global conspiracy playing out often right in view. Read full review
83
ConsequenceClint WorthingtonJan 30, 2024
Eclectic and unconventional in its presentation, Soundtrack’s density can throw you for a loop, especially if you don’t know the first thing about the geopolitics of the time and place. But it proves a healthy primer on the skeptical eye we should take towards world powers, and how even the art that’s meant to free us can be used against us. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterLovia GyarkyeDec 3, 2024
The frenetic editing might leave some viewers dizzy as they try to sort sober realities from sensational storytelling, but Grimonprez makes thrilling connections that should push viewers to pursue their own research. Read full review
80
Time OutAaron TymeNov 22, 2024
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. Read full review
80
Little White LiesPhil ConcannonNov 18, 2024
On a moment-by-moment basis, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat is as exhilarating and illuminating a history lesson as you’ll ever have. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesTara BradyNov 15, 2024
The film never lets up. Pieced together from carefully colour-graded archive footage and the contemporaneous testimonies of Khrushchev, Andrée Blouin, In Koli Jean Bofane and Conor Cruise O’Brien (narrated by Patrick Cruise O’Brien), Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat finds an unlikely villain in its propulsive score: jazz. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawNov 13, 2024
I last encountered the work of the Belgian artist and film-maker Johan Grimonprez in the documentary-reverie Double Take from 2009, which imagined an encounter between two Alfred Hitchcocks. Now in this fascinating and valuably informative film, he amplifies what he sees as the mood music that lay behind the assassination of the leftist Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba in 1961. Read full review
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