This documentary is a serious testament to the archivist's art as it pieces together an impressive array of imagery of the great and the good of American Jazz and combines that with some intimate actuality of the turbulence ongoing in the Congo as it strived for independence. Why might anyone care about the future of an impoverished African nation that had all but bankrupted it's "owner" - King Leopold II of…

Perhaps the most important objective of a documentary is to shed light on a subject and make it comprehensible and insightful for viewers, especially when it involves little-known material. However, when it comes to writer-director Johan Grimonprez’s latest offering, that goal is sorely compromised in multiple respects. The film examines (or, more precisely, attempts to examine) the complex history of the Congo’s…