‘Dahomey’ review: how we discuss colonialism

A different version of ‘Dahomey‘would settle for being a criticism of the legacy of colonialism and a call to the imperialist powers to improve their reparation mechanisms for the former colonies, but the new film Mati Diop It is much more, something vaster and more complex than its 68 minutes of footage suggest, and endowed with magical ease when moving from the metaphysical to the mundane and fusing the poetic with the political. While contemplating the repatriation to their legitimate home – the African territory today called Benin – of 26 of the 7,000 objects that the French looted from the kingdom of Dahomey in 1892, it functions at the same time as a detailed document of the transfer of those treasures, feverish discussion on the meaning of that process and ghost story about a statue that comes to life and, with a voice emerging from the tunnels of time, he reflects on his painful exile and his disconcerting return home.

‘Dahomey’ discusses whether or not works of art can champion an entire culture and if museums are centers of colonial celebration or of dissemination of education and collective identity; and, meanwhile, it appears to be overflowing with ideas, rigorous in its refusal to preach and dedicated not so much to raising questions as to exploring what the appropriate questions are, both about the various possible models of anti-colonial action and, above all, the paths to be followed by a young people determined to decide what world they want to build, and how.