Dahomey (film)

Dahomey is a 2024 documentary film directed by Mati Diop. It is a dramatised account of 26 royal treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey (in modern day Republic of Benin), which were held in a museum in France. The film explores how the artifacts were returned from France to Benin, and the reactions of Beninese people.

The film was an international co-production between companies in France, Senegal and Benin. It was shown in the main competition at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the festival's top prize, the Golden Bear. It was also nominated for the Berlinale Documentary Film Award.

It is scheduled for theatrical release in France on 25 September 2024.

Contents
The documentary film blends facts and fiction to narrate the stories of 26 African artworks. The royal artefacts from the Kingdom of Dahomey (1600–1904) were taken to France during the region's colonial period (1872–1960). In the 21st century, they were put on display in the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, a museum of non-European art located in Paris. Following a campaign for repatriation, the artefacts were returned to Benin.

Among the returned works were statues of two kings of Dahomey, Glele and Béhanzin. Their throne, which had been seized by French soldiers in 1892, was also given back. The art pieces are now displayed in a museum in Abomey, the old royal city, about 65 miles from the Gulf of Guinea.

The film includes a discussion by students at the University of Abomey-Calavi, presenting their views on the repatriation of cultural assets. Some of the students criticise the Paris museum for returning only 26 of the 7,000 worldwide ethnographic objects it holds.

A prominent role in the film is given to the 26th art object to be repatriated, a statue that represents King Ghézo, who ruled from 1818 to 1859, shown below. A voice-over by the Haitian writer Makenzy Orcel (who wrote this part of the script), playing the object, tells of the time it spent in storage at the Paris museum, its memories of Africa and thoughts of returning to its homeland.

Production


The documentary was produced by Les Films du Bal in co-production with Fanta Sy and distributed by Les Films du Losange. The director was Mati Diop, who also wrote the script, and the director of photography was Joséphine Drouin-Viallard. It was edited by Gabriel Gonzalez. The thoughts of the voiced statue were written by Makenzy Orcel. The music was composed by Wally Badarou and Dean Blunt. Corneille Houssou, Nicolas Becker and Cyril Holtz were the sound designers. The film incorporates footage from the surveillance cameras at the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac and the premises in Cotonou.

Release
The premiere of Dahomey was on 18 February 2024, as part of the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, where it was shown as part of the main competition.

In January 2024, Paris-based Les Films du Losange acquired the sales rights to the film. In February 2024, Mubi acquired the distribution rights to the film for North America, Latin America, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey and India from Les Films du Losange and plans to release the film in late 2024. It opened the 46th Cinéma du Réel Festival that took place from 22 to March 31 2024 in Paris.

It will be released in French theatres on 25 September 2024 by Les Films du Losange.

Reception


On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes website, the film has an approval rating of 95% based on 19 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 85 out of 100 based on 8 reviews, indicating "Universal Acclaim".

David Rooney reviewing the film for The Hollywood Reporter dubbed it as "Richly layered and resonant," and opined, "This directorial flourish liberates the looted treasures from being mere objects, with smart use of subjective camera by DP Joséphine Drouin-Viallard helping to make them come alive as characters."

E. Nina Rothe, writing for the International Cinephile Society, note that the film "is important, with its message crucial to restitution providing the beginning of righting the wrongs of colonialism"

Wendy Ide wrote in ScreenDaily while reviewing the film at Berlinale, "In this agile, cerebral film, using a combination of deft fly-on-the-wall footage, a centrepiece debate among students at the University of Abomey-Calavi and an unexpected element of fantasy, the film feels like an important contribution to an ongoing conversation about the legacy of colonialism in Africa, and to the thorny topic of restitution and repatriation of cultural heritage to the country of its origin."

Jessica Kiang writing in Variety in her review at Berlinale said, "French-Senegalese director Mati Diop fashions her superb, short but potent hybrid doc Dahomey as a slim lever that cracks open the sealed crate of colonial history, sending a hundred of its associated erasures and injustices tumbling into the light." Concluding Kiang opined, "Dahomey is a striking, stirring example of the poetry that can result when the dead and the dispossessed speak to and through the living."

Stephanie Bunbury, in her review at Berlinale for Deadline said, "Open-ended, fecund with imagination and ideas, never hectoring or lecturing, not so much posing questions as asking what questions might be posed: Mati Diop's film is a marvelous provocation."

Adam Solomons of IndieWire reviewing at Berlinale graded the film B and criticised the runtime of the film, he opined, "Dahomey might have worked better at a runtime of [closer to 30 minutes]: the student debate, though well staged, becomes a bit repetitive, and some of the shots of boxes being loaded and unloaded go at a snail's pace." Concluding Solomons prised the director Mati Diop and wrote, "Dahomey is a bold and memorable history lesson. But with Diop's expressive talents as they are, it's fair to hope that she returns to the world of fiction next time."

Writing for RogerEbert.com, Robert Daniels praised distinct approach to the seemingly straightforward topic, Diop's "inventive" approach to the straightforward material, highlighting its "dreamlike score," saying the film "fills and nourishes the viewer with urgent desires, providing space for the light that constitutes the souls of Black folk to shine brighter through repair. Diop is back, and she is just as searing and imperative as ever."

Reviewing in Le Polyester, Nicolas Bardot rated the film with 5/6 and wrote, "Mati Diop ambitiously mixes the political and the poetic. Her stories always project further than the facts apparent before our eyes." Concluding, Bardot opined, "In Dahomey, it is not only the present that the past finds, but also the future."

Nicholas Bell in Ion Cinema rated the film with three and half stars and opened his review stating, "The spirit of Ozymandias, the classic poem from Percy Bysshe Shelley, might rouse itself in one's mind during Mati Diop's short but passionate documentary Dahomey – "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"" Thus Bell opined, "[the film] is a depiction of a journey with so much more going on beneath the surface than an exchange of cultural artifacts." Concluding his review Bell said, "Much like her 2019 narrative debut, Atlantics, Diop proves to be exceptionally adept at coalescing textures and strands in remarkably dense ways, and Dahomey is an excellent point of entry in an ongoing conversation."

Peter Bradshaw reviewing for The Guardian rated the film with four stars out of five and wrote, "It is an invigorating and enlivening film, with obvious implications for the Elgin/Parthenon marbles in the British Museum."

Shubhra Gupta reviewing for The Indian Express wrote, that the film using a unique documentary approach laced with fantasy "powerfully challenges post-colonial notions of reparations and repair". Gupta opined, that the film is "A question that deserves our attention, and the answers that emerge from it..."

Accolades


Dahomey was selected to compete at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, where it was awarded Golden Bear award for the best film. It is the second African film to win the top prize at the festival following Mark Dornford-May's South African drama film U-Carmen eKhayelitsha in 2015. It was the second documentary in a row to take Golden Bear, after Nicolas Philibert's On the Adamant in 2023. During her acceptance speech, Diop called for people "to tear down the wall of silence together" and "to rebuild through restitution", which entails "bringing justice".