Throughout the movie “Dahomey,” the eerie voice of a 19th century West African king emerges from the depths of history.
“They have named me 26,” the voice says, imagining the thoughts of King Béhanzin, who died in 1906. Onscreen, museum curators label and package a wooden sculpture of the king, preparing it to leave France and return home, to what is now Benin. “I’m torn between the fear of not being recognized by anyone,” the voice says, “and not recognizing anything.”
When 26 artworks looted by France in the 19th century traveled back to Benin in 2021, art historians hailed the return as a groundbreaking move that would pave the way for a steadier flow of repatriations.
It was the most significant repatriation to date of artworks from a former colonial power to an African country, and the French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop was there to film it for “Dahomey,” her experimental documentary that won the top prize at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year, and which came out in U.S. movie theaters last week.
Diop’s camera traveled with the artifacts from the galleries of the Quai Branly museum in Paris to Benin’s presidential palace, where 200,000 visitors admired them over just a few months. King Béhanzin’s voice is one of a few fantastical touches she added in an otherwise nonfiction film.
