Dahomey, which won the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlinale, is an experimental new documentary that follows the return of colonial artefacts taken from the former Kingdom of Dahomey to Paris back to their home in modern-day Benin. In total 26 artefacts were returned in 2021, but director Mati Diop focuses on three statues of Dahomey’s former ruler, King Ghezo, and his two successors, Glele and Béhanzinthe. Diop also opts to give King Gehzo a voice with which he narrates their journey home in the native Dahomey language of Ton. In this way, she seeks to bring to life the physical legacy of colonialism and remind audiences such artefacts are interwoven into the identity of formerly colonised nations.
This interweaving is most clear in the parallels drawn between the transportation of the statues home and the slave trade, which stole so many Africans away from their homes. Ghezo tells us how he is reminded of the “rattle of chains” and “taste of the ocean” that accompanied his voyage to Europe, while the use of long and disorienting cuts to black reflect the confusion and darkness which surely accompanied being boxed into holds for weeks on end. The documentary also connects this to the modern diaspora slavery has created as Ghezo worries he will neither recognise his homeland nor be recognised there. It is a powerful reminder these objects are not simply “things” but “treasures” whose absence perpetuates the scars inflicted by colonisation.
The voice given to Ghezo also highlights how the scars of Orientalism are still present today through the othering of national histories, such as Benin’s, as something fanciful or regressive. There is something primal and almost frightening to Ghezo’s speech, possibly reflecting how a lifetime displayed as a curious oddity has morphed him into an exoticised alien. However, Ghezo and his kin are not alienated on their return home, and there is an intimate beauty in the way they are treated by local Benin officials. The care they are given is gentle and tactile as we see one worker clasping a statue’s hands in his and another bandaging up a wound as though tending to a child’s scrapped knee.
Once the statues reach home soil, the documentary shifts gears into something more conventional. Footage of the statues on display is intercut with talking head interviews expressing their importance to Benin. Focus is also given to a punchy student debate over whether the treasures’ repatriation marks a moment of genuine progression or is merely a tokenistic gesture from the French government. This is all, without a doubt, thoughtful and insightful, but the documentary certainly loses some of the poeticism which makes its early movements so transfixing.
Overall, Dahomey marks a mediative yet interrogative intervention into the debate about whether to return colonial artefacts. It is a compelling reminder that such items are not merely remnants of history but active elements in negotiating our colonial past and constructing a more dignified and equitable future.
Dahomey is in cinemas now and will stream soon on MUBI.