Lumumba

Congo gains independence in 1960 and Patrice Lumumba becomes the country's first prime minister. He is thirty five. He stays in office a little over two months. The army mutinies, Katanga secedes, Belgium intervenes militarily, the United Nations wavers, and figures in his own cabinet move against him. In the end he is arrested and killed in January 1961. Raoul Peck directs. Eriq Ebouaney plays Lumumba. Peck had made a documentary on the same subject earlier; this is the fiction version that came years after that work. The narrative does not sanctify Lumumba. His inexperience, his rapid decisions and his failure to read his allies stand plainly in the film. How he was killed stayed dark for a long time. Belgium's responsibility was formally acknowledged as the result of a parliamentary inquiry set up in 2001 and the country apologised; the film was made in the years that inquiry was concluding. It could not be shot in Congo; the filming was done in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The telling is fast and dense with information; because the events take place within a few months the film is constantly running. Who it is for: anyone interested in political biography and the period of African independence. Who it is not for: there are many names and institutions, it is hard to follow without the historical context, and the narrative leans on chronology rather than emotional depth.