From acclaimed filmmaker Mati Diop (Atlantics), Dahomey is a poetic and immersive work of art that delves into real perspectives on far-reaching issues surrounding appropriation, self-determination and restitution. Set in November 2021, the documentary charts 26 royal treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey that are due to leave Paris and return to their country of origin: the present-day Republic of Benin. Using multiple perspectives Diop questions how these artifacts should be received in a country that has reinvented itself in their absence. Winner of the coveted Golden Bear prize at the 2024 Berlinale, Dahomey is an affecting though altogether singular conversation piece that is as spellbinding as it is essential.
The Garden Cinema View:
Mati Diop’s Golden Bear winning Dahomey is yet another glowing node in a career that encompasses superb short form work, the beautiful docufiction tribute to her uncle Djibril Diop Mambéty, Mille Soleils, the astonishing ghost story Atlantics, and an era defining performance in Claire Denis’ 35 Shots of Rum. Dahomey, throughout a brief running time, continually shifts registers and tones. The Wiseman-esque sequences of the logistics of storage, transportation, and display provide a riposte to arguments surrounding the safe-keeping and preservation of purloined treasures by ex-colonial powers and institutions. A student debate in Benin, eloquently lays out the complex framework of history, politics, and emotions that the return of these objects invokes. And the voices of the statues themselves speak out, flowing into the ambient score from Wally Badarou and Dean Blunt, and Diop’s own poetic imagery of the city of Abomey.
