It shouldn’t come as a surprise that director Mati Diop brings metaphysical invention to Dahomey, a documentary about a collection of royal artifacts being returned from France to Benin, where they were plundered from the Kingdom of Dahomey during the colonial era. After all, Diop’s Atlantics dramatized unfair labor practices in Senegal as a ghost story. And so here, the trip from Europe to Africa is narrated by one of the treasured pieces: a statue of King Ghezo. The statue’s interior musings—“Why didn’t they call me by my real name?” it says of being referred to by museum curators as “26”—make Dahomey less of a geopolitical document and more of an existential challenge. (The statue’s “dialogue” was written by Haitian author Makenzy Orcel, while the recording itself consists of a variety of voices in different tones and genders being blended together.) As a result of this technique, seemingly simple establishing shots—of plants rustling in the wind or water spraying from a sprinkler—carry a spiritual dimension. Perhaps each leaf, each drop has a story to tell. At the same time, Diop roots Dahomey in the here and now by filming a debate among Beninese students, activists, historians, and scholars about the significance of the artifacts being returned, during which reactions range from teary pride to deep skepticism and everything in between. Educational, intimate, and transcendent, Dahomey is a minor treasure of its own.
(11/6/2024)
