DAHOMEY – Review by Jennifer Green
French-Senegalese director Mati Diop (Atlantics) has created a thoughtful and symbolic one-hour documentary about the 2021 return to present-day Benin of a small portion of the royal treasures plundered by invading French troops in 1892 from the then-Kingdom of Dahomey.
Titled Dahomey, the film was nominated by co-producing country Senegal for the International Oscar race, and it has just made the 15-title shortlist in that category as well as for Best Documentary. It previously won the Golden Bear at the 2024 Berlinale.
Diop places a camera inside a wooden box transporting one of the artifacts “home” from France, and we are sent on the journey with it. But what does “home” even mean to one who doesn’t remember their place of origin? That’s a question asked by the statue inside the box, originally referred to only as “number 26.”
The statue speaks in a thundering voiceover. His words, scripted by Haitian novelist and poet Makenzy Orcel, are poetic and haunting. He says he still hears the rattle of chains in the distance and the aftertaste of the ocean in his mouth.
These evocative notions come to mind later when an interviewee draws a parallel between the restitution of the artifacts and a return to Africa of descendants from around the world. Benin is part of what was once known as the “slave coast,” where so many Africans were abducted and sold away as slaves.
Not until the artifacts arrive in Benin are we informed of their considerable historical and cultural significance. They represent gods and thrones, kings and kingdoms, memorials to the dead. Even so, in the film’s most meaningful and stimulating sequences, a town hall of college students debates the meaning of their repatriation and the legacy of colonialism in their own lives.
One woman says she cried for 15 minutes upon seeing the pieces. Another person sees their return as a sign of self-determination and identity-formation for the Beninese. A man suggests the restitution was only about France’s image. Still others call it an “insult” that only 26 of 7,000 looted pieces have been returned, and a sign of adopting the colonizers’ thinking that more have not been demanded.
In other words, there are plenty of grey areas in the interpretation and reception of these artifacts, as well as in how they are viewed in the context of historical and contemporary geopolitics. These young thinkers also find plenty to question in how they’ve been inculcated to value their own culture and languages in relation to those of the West, or whether the average Beninese has the means or education to attend a museum to see the artifacts.
And yet, a brief scene where two young construction workers spontaneously sneak into the museum to gawk at the items suggests – as strongly as any words argued – the deep significance of the treasures. It’s their country’s history, their ancestors’ traditions and their culture’s beliefs embodied in these pieces. And they, in turn, together with the whip-smart students, represent their country’s future.
