Director: Mati Diop

French-Senegalese director Diop's documentary clocks in at a mere seventy minutes but contains multitudes.

In 2021 it was announced that a handful of treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey, located in what is now Benin, plundered by French colonial troops in 1892, were to be returned.

In the first meditative segment Diop shows, methodically, the items, just a mere twenty-six out of thousands, being packed away for shipment. One of them, a wooden statue of nineteenth century ruler King Gezo, is given booming voice in the still-spoken Fon language as Gezo reflects on his years of incarceration and what changes await him in his homeland. Meanwhile an electronic score from Wally Badarou and Dean Blunt evokes the mythical country’s past and the future.

The film sparks into thrilling life in the second part when the treasures have been restored and on show at a modern museum, and a heated debate takes place between students at the University of Abomey-Calavi. It’s a charged but illuminating series of exchanges: some students are welcoming and triumphal; others pointing out the paltry amount of items returned, suggesting that this is a mere publicity stunt for France and the current Beninese government.

Diop eschews a didactic or celebratory tone via visual nods to Benin’s own militaristic and exploitative history in a picture worlds removed from that other Dahomey-set film the fictional ‘The Woman King’.

David Willoughby

Follow David on Twitter: @DWill_Crackfilm