Review: In sharp documentary ‘Dahomey,’ African art returns home, but colonialism still stings

A long-silent voice from a distant past — eerie and reverberating — awakens in the climate-controlled, antiseptic chambers of a Paris museum. The forum through which this entity communicates to us is Mati Diop’s “Dahomey.” The French Senegalese filmmaker returns with a rich and absorbing exploration of the specter of colonialism that continues the enthralling, otherworldly quality of her 2019 breakthrough film, “Atlantics.”

“Dahomey,” a formally inventive documentary, traces the journey across continents of 26 artworks looted from the West African Kingdom of Dahomey that, in 2021, were returned to the modern-day nation of Benin (also the birthplace of voodoo). This repatriated collection represents a minuscule fraction of the 7,000 pieces the French pillaged from their former colony — and that number applies only to what they took from this one location among many.

The voice emanates from the artifact labeled “26,” a statue of Dahomey’s King Ghézo. In a stacked sound of multiple voices speaking at once, the statue vocalizes grievances in its native Fon language (also known as Dahomean). Poetic ruminations on imprisonment in a foreign land and yearning for a home that may no longer exist are supported by Wally Badarou and Dean Blunt’s entrancing synth score. Their alluring compositions sonically resemble the wonder of discovery with a hint of trepidation at the unknown.

The other artifacts include a sculpture of heroic King Béhanzin (which one young man suggests should have had his own animated feature for Beninese children), another of King Glele and an asen or sinuka, an ornate object created to memorialize the dead.

At only 68 minutes, “Dahomey” brims with plenty of perspectives on what the restitution of these ancient treasures symbolizes and the dicey political implications around it. For the Beninese government, it’s a victory they can peddle to gain the people’s favor, while France can mine it as an image-boosting tactic that comes with tacit paternalism. The insultingly low number of pieces the French are willing to let go of implies they are testing whether Benin can ensure their safety. Even this process occurs on the colonizer’s terms.

Benin’s case is far from singular. The feathered headdress once worn by Aztec emperor Moctezuma II resides in Vienna. Mexico has demanded its return, but the Austrian government has refused, citing the possible damage the piece may experience in transit.

Back home in the city of Abomey, an expert assesses the condition of the artifacts and their significance. One of them, an intricately carved throne, expresses the Kingdom of Dahomey’s expansionist practice of enslaving captured enemies. In an example of the unassuming brilliance with which Diop and editor Gabriel Gonzalez assemble the images and sounds of “Dahomey,” they cut from that depiction of ancient servitude to the young construction workers arduously getting the local museum ready for diplomats to visit.

Will these men get to enjoy the exhibit or is a culturally enriching experience denied to them because of their lack of financial means? And if it’s the latter, then who is it for? Diop perceptively mines meaning from images: In the film’s opening moments, we see colorfully lit-up replicas of the Eiffel Tower sold informally near the shores of the Seine River, presumably by immigrants (African and otherwise) making a living in the French capital. These modern effigies to mass production and over-consumption carry their own history, gained from both the seller in need and the tourist who purchases them.

“Dahomey” is at its most blazingly confrontational when Diop includes footage of a panel session in which students discuss the issues at hand. Some say that, in taking the material, the French looted something intangible: the Beninese people’s chance at seeing themselves in a larger historical context and not just through the gaze of white victimizers. Others argue that the restitution shouldn’t be perceived with blind nationalism but with skepticism, because in the aftermath of the exhibit’s grand opening, little will have changed for the everyday individuals struggling to survive.

Those heated exchanges even question the very idea of museums as Western institutions imposed as the sole pathway for preservation and meaningful engagement with the past. Philosophical concepts used to address these topics have been implicitly determined by the colonizer through the exaltation of certain thinkers and the obscuring of others. Even the language they use to denounce them, French, is a foreign tongue and not one endemic to Dahomey.

But though these art objects carry the weight of centuries of defeats and conquests, they can’t alone engender a cultural identity. They are only precious memories. It’s the living people of the land and their self-determination who give expression to a history in perpetual transition, waiting to be written, crafted, spoken and lived into existence in the here and now.