# Lumumba (2000)

### reviewed by
Harvey S. Karten

    LUMUMBA

     Reviewed by Harvey Karten
     Zeitgeist Films
     Director: Raoul Peck
     Writer:  Pascal Bonitzer, Raoul Peck
     Cast: Eriq Ebouaney, Alex Descas, Theophile Sowie, Maka
    Kotto, Dieudonne Kabongo, Pascal N'Zonzi

Every time a U.S. president is shot or a major government figure is assassinated in a foreign country whether by a crazed gunman or a group that has carefully planned a coup, I think of how much more pleasant it is to be an ordinary guy. Oh, there are dangers facing all of us in these parlous times, but it seems that the less you need a bodyguard, the less you seem to attract people out to do you in. Take the most recent case of a national leader gunned down in a coup. Some months ago President Laurent Kabila of the Congo was assassinated. Even if you keep up with the New York Times, you're likely to say, "Huh...what's this all about"? and then you remember the time you ignored your high school history who insisted that if you don't know her subject thoroughly, you not only miss out on some fascinating reading but you have no real idea how things got to be the way they are--how a particular figure came to be the target of an assassin's bullet.

In this case Laurent Kabila was a supporter of the Congo's George Washington, Patrice Lumumba, who--contrary to our own country's dad--was no landowner but simply a self-taught postal worker who began delivering fiery diatribes in his huge country in the central part of Africa while selling beer. He became the former Belgian colony's first prime minister only to be shot by a firing squad just months after assuming office. Does this tell you why his follower, Laurent Kabila, was similarly taken out forty years later? In a way it does. If you want a history lesson that's not only painless but fascinating as well, take in Haitian director Raoul Peck's riveting, docu- drama style political thriller (which he co-wrote with Pascal Bonitzer), "Lumumba."

As the title character, Eriq Ebouaney looks and acts like Denzel Washington in his portrayal of "Malcolm X" in Spike Lee's considerably longer historical drama. The picture opens on a grisly scene, that of a couple of Belgian soldiers (one drinking heavily from a bottle, a man who was later to go insane) are hacking up and disgracefully burning three corpses. As they chop and saw away at Lumumba's body in the darkness, far from witnesses, cinematographer Bernard Lutic (who shot the work mostly in Mozambique and Zimbabwe) cuts to the young Lumumba haranguing a crowd in Stanleyville, a pep rally urging complete independence of the then Belgian Congo from its minuscule European colonial power. (As I recall from World Geography 2, sixty Belgiums can fit inside the African country it dominated.) Rising to the leadership of his political party and receiving the most votes in a democratic election, he cuts a deal with Joseph Kasavubu to share power, with Kasavubu as president and Lumumba and Prime Minister.

In a power struggle that began even before the decisive appointment, the more moderate Kasavubu--who gives a conciliatory speech on independence day, playing up to the Belgians in the audience--would break completely from the radical Lumumba--who courageously indicts the Europeans for their snobbery, their readiness to imprison dissidents, and their continued role as white officers leading an all-black Congolese army. Still later in the story, as riots break out in the barracks leading to the rapes of Belgian women by undisciplined Congolese soldiers, Belgian paratroopers move in to restore order and protect their nationals who remain, while the American CIA, eager to protect American business and geopolitical interests, back Moise Tshombe (Pascal N'Zonzi) and his Katanga region secessionist movement.

If the direction comes off on the stiff side and the performers occasionally fall into agitprop caricatures of their ideologies, the picture as a whole has the look of authenticity, sincerity, and an obvious pro-Lumumba partisanship. Raoul Peck subtly evokes the selfish, even evil motives of the whites from the condescending Belgian general to the Belgian ambassador and even a representative of U.S. President Kennedy's government. Framed by the shameless burning of Congo's national hero with only a smidgen of kootchi-coo family sentimentality, "Lumumba" richly deserves its Best Picture award at the 2001 Pan African Film Festival.

Not Rated. Running time: 115 minutes. (C) 2001 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews