This is a pretty good film about the rise and fall of Patrice Lumumba, first Prime Minister of what was formerly the Belgian Congo. It was done on a small budget and lacks certain production values but it was well presented and the acting sufficient to tell the story.
Many people have complained in other reviews about the angle from which it was directed and whether the story is accurate or not. I'm not an expert on Congolese history, so cannot offer an opinion on that score, but it's obviously a complex situation and not easily covered in a two hour film.
The Belgian Congo was an important battleground in the Cold War right around the time of the transition to the Kennedy administration, and no doubt the United States had a hand in Lumumba's execution. He was, after all, a nationalist outside of the American sphere of control and was flirting with the Russians (much as Fidel Castro was doing across the Atlantic in Cuba).
But there is much more to the story. Prime Minister Lumumba wanted to unite the Congo and control it with a central government, but there were regional powers and economic forces working against him. I suppose anyone trying to do what Lumumba was aiming to do would have been at risk at that time and place. Even now, over four decades later, with Mobutu Seko gone, there is much civil strife and no one has united the country.
Raoul Peck, a Haitian who has lived in Zaire, does a fair job of directing this story. He presents Lumumba in a heroic light but also shows the flaws in his leadership. His life isn't overly dramatized like what Spike Lee did to Malcolm X, and, thankfully, he didn't take the Oliver Stone approach and make it into a big international conspiracy.
It's history lite, but seeing as how this is a subject not covered very often, it's valuable nonetheless.
Many people have complained in other reviews about the angle from which it was directed and whether the story is accurate or not. I'm not an expert on Congolese history, so cannot offer an opinion on that score, but it's obviously a complex situation and not easily covered in a two hour film.
The Belgian Congo was an important battleground in the Cold War right around the time of the transition to the Kennedy administration, and no doubt the United States had a hand in Lumumba's execution. He was, after all, a nationalist outside of the American sphere of control and was flirting with the Russians (much as Fidel Castro was doing across the Atlantic in Cuba).
But there is much more to the story. Prime Minister Lumumba wanted to unite the Congo and control it with a central government, but there were regional powers and economic forces working against him. I suppose anyone trying to do what Lumumba was aiming to do would have been at risk at that time and place. Even now, over four decades later, with Mobutu Seko gone, there is much civil strife and no one has united the country.
Raoul Peck, a Haitian who has lived in Zaire, does a fair job of directing this story. He presents Lumumba in a heroic light but also shows the flaws in his leadership. His life isn't overly dramatized like what Spike Lee did to Malcolm X, and, thankfully, he didn't take the Oliver Stone approach and make it into a big international conspiracy.
It's history lite, but seeing as how this is a subject not covered very often, it's valuable nonetheless.