Congo films hit pay-dirt in South African theaters
Two films about the Congo are playing in South Africa, and they are packing the houses. One is about Patrice Lumumba, a former prime minister of Zaire, and the other about Mobutu, a three decades dictator of Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The movies and the stories behind them are fascinating of themselves. Why they are packing the theaters in South Africa simply adds flavor to that fascination.
Haitian director Roaul Peck’s film, Patrice: An African Icon, a documentary about the life of the Congo’s Patrice Lumumba, has opened to packed houses at the two cinemas in South Africa at which it played. It has grossed record revenues for documentary films in that country.
Peck’s film, shown in the US last year under the title, Lumumba, tells the story of one of Africa’s most charismatic leaders and his role in shaping politics in the Congo of the early 1960s. Lumumba was assassinated in a plot that involved the CIA and the Belgian secret service.
John Kariuki, reporting for The East African, said that the movie has only two prints in circulation and is showing at the moment only in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Another film about the Congo, entitled, Mobutu, King of Zaire, also drew large crowds, indicating great interest in South Africa about the evolution of the present-day DR Congo.
Mobutu, King of Zaire, is a three-part film by Thierry Michel described as “the definitive visual record of the rise and fall of Joseph Désiré Mobutu, ruler of Zaire (the Congo) for over 30 years. Drawing upon 140 hours of rare archival material found in Kinshasa, and 50 hours of interviews with those once close to him, the movie tells the story of the man at the heart of Central Africa’s post-colonial history.
The cultural officer at the South African High Commission in Nairobi, Solly Chivula,said,
“People want to understand the underlying socio-political factors that triggered the crises and are intrigued by the conspiracies promoted by Western nations involved in African conflicts.”
Kariuki added:
“The box office success of these two movies on Congolese leaders contradict the popular notion that South Africans are not interested in political movies.”
In June 2001, we did a special feature on the movie about Lumumba. Given its current popularity in South Africa, we will present the story again.
“Lumumba,” a moving, gripping true story of an African hero
Raoul Peck, a former Haitian minister and long-time filmmaker, has assembled a movie that has played in Europe and most recently played at the Lake Placid, New York Film Forum as part of an effort to demonstrate filmmakers with social responsibility. Eriq Ebouaney, who plays Patrice Lumumba, former prime minister of the newly independent Congo, is said to bring Lumumba to life through the passion of his own beliefs and his great intensity. For his part, Raoul Peck made the film to revive Lumumba as a significant figure in African history.
June 17, 2001
The recently held Lake Placid, New York Film Forum featured the movie “Lumumba,” by Haitian director Raoul Peck. The movie tells the story of Patrice Lumumba, who led the Belgian Congo out of its colonial status despite American and Belgian hostility and rivalries within his own ranks.
The theme of the Lake Placid Film Forum 2001, held between June 6-10 in the town’s Olympic Village, was, “Do filmmakers have social responsibility?” Critics such as David Sterritt , Allison Anders and Philip Lopate moderated a series of panels exploring such topics as:
* Real to Reel: When Does Creativity Become a Lie?
* Can Movies Think?
* Where are the Women?
Panelists included such leading authors as John Irving, Russell Banks, and William Kennedy.
The movie made its debut in France in October 2000. Raoul Peck, shown in this picture, set the objective of reviving Lumumba as a significant figure in African history.
“Le 4 octobre sort Lumumba, récit des dernières et plus mouvementées années de la vie de Patrice Lumumba, premier ministre en juin 1960 d’un Congo fraîchement indépendant et assassiné six mois plus tard. Avec ce film, le réalisateur haÏtien Raoul Peck espère réhabiliter cette figure incontournable de l’Histoire africaine.”
Peck portrays Lumumba as one who thought that the Belgian Congo could be decolonized without violence, but he was deceived, betrayed, eventually tortured and then assassinated. Peck works to convey the fury and violence of this tragedy.
“Patrice Lumumba pensait que l’on pouvait décoloniser le Congo belge sans violence. Trahi, lâché, torturé, assassiné de façon atroce, il s’était lourdement trompé. Le réalisateur haïtien Raoul Peck relate cette tragédie de fureur et de violence.”
Deborah Young’s review of the movie was carried in Variety in May 2000. She said this about it:
“A rare and significant film of legendary African leader Patrice Lumumba, who for six war-torn months served as the Congo’s first prime minister after it became independent, ‘Lumumba’ is an impassioned, at times thrilling re-creation of the birth of the country that became Zaire and is now known as Congo again. Although some knowledge of African history would be helpful, especially in the film’s opening scenes, this becomes less important as the main players come into focus and the force of events sweeps the film on to its bitter conclusion. Beyond the festival world, the film should be able to carve a foothold for itself in Europe in specialized theatrical venues; with careful handling, it could have a shot in the U.S.
“Haitian helmer Raoul Peck returns to the subject of his acclaimed 1991 documentary, ‘Lumumba, Death of a Prophet,’ working this time through the themes of betrayed ideals and fallen heroes in fictional form. In this sense, the film’s heroic portrait of a charismatic, assassinated leader recalls other tragedies of trampled political ideals, including Spike Lee’s ‘Malcolm X.
“Peck’s striking images fix many scenes in the memory. The film opens with a brutal, mysterious scene of two white men in uniform chopping corpses to pieces and burning them in an African savanna. Only in the film’s closing moments does it become clear whose bodies they are.
“At the end of the 1950s, the charismatic young Lumumba (played by Eriq Ebouaney), head of the National Congo Movement, is earning the enthusiastic support of the people and the enmity of rival politicians by preaching independence, unity and justice. Thrown into prison, he is abruptly dragged out again when he is called to Brussels to take part in a round table with top-level diplomats who are finalizing the Congo’s independence from Belgium.
“When Lumumba’s party wins the national election, he is catapulted to the top, at the age of 36.
“If up to this point the film unfolds predictably, the story begins to take hold once he is appointed prime minister. Within days, the army mutinies, demanding that African soldiers take the place of the white Belgian officers.
“Peck captures the electrifying tension of the moment when a crazed band of soldiers breaks into a cabinet meeting at gunpoint, showing how fragile the fledgling government is. With a few succinct images, the massacre of white colonists is eloquently evoked.
“In the rebellious province of Katanga, a Belgian pilot sets Lumumba and president Kasa Vubu (played by Maka Kotto) down in a deserted airfield where angry, frightened colonists threaten their lives. Next, Belgian paratroopers are landing, and a civil war is in the offing.
“Ebouaney, a French stage thespian of great intensity, brings Lumumba to life through the passion of his beliefs, far removed from normal political considerations. This, the film suggests, is the main cause of his downfall.
“Struggling to avoid bloodshed and a civil war at all costs, he fights to keep the Congo independent, ignoring the impact of Belgian and American envoys who are maneuvering behind the scenes.
“Finally, he finds himself betrayed by the friend he appointed to head the army, Joseph Mobutu (played by the deadly serious Alex Descas), who was destined to emerge as the country’s strongman.
“Condensing a lot of dry history into an often gripping narrative, Peck and co-scripter Pascal Bonitzer finely recreate the atmosphere of tension and constant danger that surrounded Lumumba’s brief hold on power. The picture was filmed on location in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Belgium.
Amazon.com, which says the movie will start playing around the United States on June 27, and Amazon eventually hopes to get the rights to sell it, provided this editorial review:
“‘Lumumba’ is a gripping political thriller which tells the story of the legendary African leader Patrice Emery Lumumba. Called ‘the politico of the bush’ by journalists of his day, the brilliant and charismatic Lumumba rose rapidly to the office of Prime Minister when Belgium conceded the Congo’s independence in June, 1960.
“Lumumba’s vision of a united Africa gained him powerful enemies: the Belgian authorities, who wanted a much more paternal role in their former colony’s affairs, and the CIA, who supported Lumumba’s former friend Joseph Mobutu in order to protect U.S. business interests in Congo’s vast resources and their upper hand in the Cold War power balance. The architects behind Lumumba’s brutal death in 1961, a mere nine months after becoming the country’s first Prime Minister, recently became known and are dramatized for the first time in ‘Lumumba.’”
According to Human Rights Watch, the film will play in New York on June 23 at 8:30 pm at the Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Plaza as part of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival 2001, which runs from June 13-28. It will be in French with English subtitles.