DAHOMEY – Review by Lynn Venhaus
A past stolen from an African kingdom is restored in Dahomey, a striking, stylized documentary that shows the repatriation efforts for plundered royal artifacts and what the exhibition means to its current home.
In November 2021, 26 pieces left Paris on a boat to the Republic of Benin, and this voyage is not chronicled the way you might expect an historical account to unfold. Rather, director Mati Diop takes an unusual approach, creating haunting imagery through different points of view.
That these Africans were robbed of their cultural identity through colonization is Diop’s main theme. During the film, we see the excitement about the homecoming and hear from students attending the University of Abomey-Calavi on what the restitution means to them. The art is now exhibited in a museum in Abomey.
In a bold move, spirits of those exiled kings (and other forms) depicted in the statues raise their voices as the objects are prepared for shipment, a re-awakening of sorts. The cargo’s arrival details procedures, such as assessing their condition, but also sparks conversations.
The kingdom of Dahomey was part of the West Africa region from about 1600 until the turn of the 20th century. It was invaded by France in 1892, and thousands of artifacts were taken – this is only a fraction of what’s left.
Now called Benin, the small country is located between the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer, and borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the north, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south.
Diop, an innovative French-Senegalese filmmaker whose 2019 drama Atlantics, about young construction workers who traveled from Senegal to Europe only to return as ghosts, was accepted into the Cannes Film Festival, thus making her the first Black female director to have a feature in competition. She employs a fantasy element here.
The film won the Golden Bear (Best Film) at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival and was nominated for Best Historical Documentary and Best Narration at the upcoming Critics Choice Documentary Awards Nov. 10. It will be released in U.S. theatres on Oct. 25 by MUBI.
Diop collaborator Malkenzy Orcel wrote the narration. To share thoughts of an exiled ruler (King Ghezo, 1818 to 1859), they use an electronically altered voiceover that sounds like a familiar supernatural being from a horror film. Narrators include Lucrèce Hougbelo, Sabine Badjogoumin, Parfait Vaiayinon and Didier Sedoha Nassangade.
The cinematography by Joséphine Drouin-Viallard contrasts dreamlike images with stark reality and the intriguing music by Wally Badarou and Dean Blunt reflects moods and impact.
This 67-minute poetic and powerful documentary delivers a history lesson too important to ignore. You won’t soon forget those disenfranchised souls.
