Dahomey emphasizes the marginalized in contemplating colonialism's modern-day manifestations

For her first feature-length directorial effort, Atlantics, writer/director Mati Diop told a saga of love and ghosts. Specifically, she wove a yarn set in Dakar about Ada (Mame Bineta Sane) and her construction worker lover Souleiman (Ibrahima Traoré). Though the latter figure perishes at sea with a group of other men, Souleiman and his cohorts return home as ghosts possessing the bodies of living Dakar residents. Here, Diop created a visually and atmospherically compelling narrative about lives reverberating long after they leave their mortal coil. Our stories do not begin and end with our birth and death. Our connections to the larger world are much more expansive than that.

Diop returns behind the camera in the documentary Dahomey to explore another more tactile way the past endures. Dahomey's title refers to the former Kingdom of Dahomey, which collapsed in 1904 after a 304-year-long existence. French colonizers stole these artifacts in 1892. They were subsequently displayed at the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac. Many tourists passed by these objects encased in glass and never gave them a second thought. However, these precious objects are symbols of culture and humanity that colonizers tried to wipe out. They belong in their native land, not financially benefiting descendants of colonizers continents away.

Diop and cinematographer Joséphine Drouin-Viallard begin Dahomey in Paris, where some of these artifacts were once held captive. The duo's external Paris images linger on glistening Eiffel Tower knick-knacks and a wide shot of indiscernible rich partygoers on a boat. These shots exude an intentionally aloof air that rarely makes Parisian citizens either visible or important. This sharply contrasts with the pair's utilization of more intimate camerawork. This framing captures various objects like King Ghezo’s statue or inhabitants of Benin (the renamed version of the Republic of Dahomey). A global society deferring to colonizers has constantly given importance to these pillagers. Diop’s Dahomey visual scheme subverts that norm.

Paris is quickly left behind once viewers are informed that 26 of these artifacts are being returned to Benin. This is when Diop incorporates a more heightened scripted element into Dahomey. Certain sequences are told from the perspective of one of these relics named 26. This object speaks in voice-over narration realized through a cluster of overlapping voice-over performers. It also speaks in deeply poetic existential phrases like “within me resonates infinity”. Dahomey often employs deeply observational filmmaking. This captures everyday people walking around museums or Benin college students engaging in an open dialogue session. On the total opposite side of the spectrum are artsier dream-like segments where 26, often bathed in darkness, pontificates about its existence.

With these digressions, Diop lends a literal voice to artifacts kept locked up in the darkness for too long. Such heightened means creatively communicate the staggering psychological implications of keeping these treasures for over a century. Dahomey’s varied filmmaking styles illustrate that you sometimes must go stylized to tap into reality. More grounded elements include lengthy sequences of University of Abomey-Calavi students debating the implications of these relics returning to Benin. Some merely express joy at seeing these entities on their native soil. Others, meanwhile, declare incredibly understandable frustration at only 26 of roughly 7,000 stolen artifacts coming home.

Rather than a cause for euphoria, others in these Dahomey sequences consider this event “a great insult”. A multitude of opinions on France returning a sliver of stolen Dahomey relics exist in just this room. However, Diop’s camera captures a recurring sentiment binding most, if not all, of these testimonies: a recognition of colonialism’s evils seeping into their lives. One early speaker in these discussion remarks how “I grew up watching Disney, Avatar, Tom & Jerry…I never saw an animated film about my culture.” Another woman later declares that, because of the lingering after-effects of France’s occupation, she cannot speak her mind in her native tongue. She must express herself in French, the language of the oppressors.

Transfixing portraits of everyday life emphasizing humanity in both objects and Benin citizens dominates Dahomey’s visual scheme. This is a quiet movie, right down to its sonically muted end credits. That subdued scope is one of Dahomey’s greatest strengths. Naturalistic moments like a lengthy shot of a small Benin child looking around at Dahomey artifacts in a local exhibit have room to breathe in these confines. Voice-over testimony from “26” (a label this object later eschews) is similarly free of rushed pacing.

Dahomey’s avant-garde and languid tendencies may inspire bristling rather than cheers from some moviegoers. That’ll be their loss, as there’s plenty of impressive and quietly subversive artistry to appreciate here. With a runtime that lasts just over an hour (not counting credits), Mati Diop demonstrates far more ingenuity and visual adroitness than recent bloated American epics like Megalopolis and Joker: Folie a Deux. Much like her 2019 classic Atlantics, Diop’s Dahomey thoughtfully contemplates the past and present intersecting.