DAHOMEY

(director/writer: Mati Diop; screenwriter: Malkenzy Orcel; cinematographer: Josephine Drouin-Viallard; editor: Gabriel Gonzalez; music: Dean Blunt, Wally Badarou; cast:  Makenzy Orcel (voice); Runtime: 68; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Judith Lou Levy, Mati Diop, Eve Robin; MUBI; 2024-France/Benin/Senegal-in French and Fon, with English subtitles)

“A substantial work brilliantly asking if removing art from people is stealing a part of their being.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Acclaimed French-Sengalese director Mati Diop (“Atlantics “/”A Thousand Suns”) co-writes with Malkenzy Orcel this straightforward museum documentary piece about the modern-day African nation of Benin taking back from the French government, in November 2021, after years of heavy pressure, twenty-six artifacts stolen from the African nation by the colonists and exhibited at Musée du Quai Branly, in Paris. The small West African nation was once known as the Kingdom of Dahomey. Diop highlights piece number 26, a statue of King Ghézo (who ruled Dahomey from 1818 until 1858), and she gives a lecture about it.

Though offering not much of an analysis, it instead offers a lyrical narrative that asks how these artifacts will be received in the African nation that has since reinvented itself. It gives the film an experimental twist, as it films a heated debate staged by Diop in a town-hall setting that lets us see how uneasy it makes it feel for the French people involved with the change, as students argue how important art is for a country’s culture. It also asks how long it will take to return the other stolen art work.

Though it drags at times, even if only at 68-minutes, it’s nevertheless a substantial work brilliantly asking if removing art from people is stealing a part of their being. 

It played at the Berlin Film Festival.

REVIEWED ON 11/13/2024  GRADE: B+
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