19/02/2024 - BERLINALE 2024: Mati Diop’s documentary, which follows the return of works of art stolen in colonial times, is a precious little gem – little in terms of length, but not artistic expression

Eiffel Towers sparkle in bright colours, lighting up the night. There are many of them, they’re small, and they’re being sold straight from the ground on one of Paris’s bridges. They’re objects, but the tower is also a symbol of the French capital, and their image opens Dahomey [+see also:
trailer
film profile], directed by Mati Diop – a simple yet smart, observant and focused documentary running in Competition at the 74th Berlinale.

The Eiffel Towers will remain silent and still, at least until some tourist or other buys them, but 26 sculptures and works of art are about to set out on a long journey. And one of them, a statue of King Ghezo, will get his voice back, in fact. Where is the metal and wooden monarch travelling? One-hundred-and-thirty years after being taken from the now non-existent Kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Benin) by France in colonial times, he is returning home. He simply introduces himself as “Number 26” and talks in a low, unearthly voice about being held in darkness and so on; his true identity is later revealed by a Beninese museum curator.

Diop’s camera follows the monarch and his entourage’s passage from France to Benin, where they’re greeted upon arrival like living, breathing royals. There are people singing and dancing joyfully; there are delegations of local officials coming to receive them. Before being unpacked and presented to the public, the boxes with 26 works of art wait in a presidential palace. Take that, pavement-hugging Eiffel Towers.

Not only are sculptures given a voice in Dahomey, but somewhere in the middle of the 67-minute film, the focus switches from a museum to a conference, where Beninese people are discussing and arguing about the return of their national treasure. Diop presents myriad different opinions and ambiguous points of view: some people are happy that the artifacts have returned, others want all of the stolen objects back, while still others investigate Beninese national identity and how it was altered by colonialism. One man says that while growing up, he used to watch US cartoons and had no access to local legends or stories, which made him unaware that there were any.

By giving a voice to the statue of King Ghezo and adding some slightly unrealistic shots of plants or the Atlantic Ocean, Dahomey tries to fill this void, to be a fairy tale rarely, or maybe never, told before. Diop’s film is a delightful exercise in mixing reality with creativity, as much as it is important in presenting how the colonial past still influences the present, and how complicated and multilayered that heritage is. The film closes with an image of a Beninese street at night, bathed in colourful neon lights; it’s not possible they could come from a European tower, or is it? After all, sculptures don’t have a voice either.

Dahomey is a joint effort involving France, Senegal and Benin, and was produced by Les Films du Bal and Fanta Sy. Its world sales are handled by Les Films du Losange.