Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat (2024) review

Assembled from countless hours of archival footage from the 1950's and 1960's, this documentary tells the story of bookish (and defiant) Patrice Lumumba, who became the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo after its "independence" from Belgium and dreamed of creating the United States of Africa, which certainly alarmed a lot of global leaders who wanted access to the stockpile of uranium in the area, and this narrative is mixed in with concert material involving prominent musicians from the era, including Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln.  Grimonprez's background as a multimedia artist is evident with the flashy editing and the music is a treat for fans of jazz, except the enormity of the project proves too much to cover even with the two-and-a-half hour running time, as you also have the Soviet Union's involvement, Allen Dulles' meddling, U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld's playing the middle ground, the fight for Civil Rights in the U.S., Fidel Castro staying at the Hotel Theresa in NYC and so on.  It seems designed to appeal to the ADHD crowd with its relentless shifting around, and I'm not sure how the international intrigue fully ties in with the stylings of Duke and Dizzy, but they do add a "hipness" factor to the whole endeavor.  Since this took place well before I was born, I was surprised to watch the pleasingly bombastic Nikita Khrushchev pound his fists (and shoe) ... and then I read about the way he was treated by his own country years later (that's Russia for you).