
“Moses, in his spiritual wasteland, wonders like. ‘Even if it takes the entire ocean, will it take every last ounce unless I seek the truth?’”
The documentary by Mati’s Dip named ‘Dahomey’, depicts the return of 26 royal objects that belong to the Kingdom of present-day Benin dated back to the year 1600, “Dahomey’’ in simple words is a documentary centered around the historical events Rome around the colonial rule of the french Colonization is not a tamed creature, and the story of dominance the French had over the kingdom of Dahomey wasn’t any different than other parts of the world. The French are known to have resorted to barbaric methods to suppress the people of Dahome, and why only them? Africa today speaks for how the culture around Language, Arts, and Education was systematically dismantled by European powers only to fulfill their selfish ulterior motives.
In the light of deep history sociology, the documentary depicts that nothingness fuels a society that might just feel like a void outside of war-framed history. Just like Matis’s narrative feature debut “Atlantics”, “Dahomey’’ in the abstract is the same story told from different perspectives.
Diop further includes an object that is returned, at which point the author dives into the documentary and begins to narrate a ghost story.
The artifact 26 is a wooden sculpture with some metal that tells it story of the history of the movement from France to Benin. He is raspy and speaks with a low voice and he has not been spoken to. Sometimes there are instances when Diop fires from ’26’’s perspective. When it is being packed in a box, we are one of the last individuals to see the light. This recalls the history of 26, as a child when she was carried by white French workers in France to dark-skinned people of her country. In her case, the story is quite the reverse, for she has to endure the pain of knowing that only one injustice has been corrected, the fact that she is back home in Benin.
Next, follow history and discussions and debates within the society trying to come to terms with the absence of over three centuries of their missing history. This sense of vacuum in Benin’s “Dahomey” is what is most interesting, seeing the society perform all the rituals of mourning the Amnesia Gifts and being aware that the delay is only a few years.
There still likely exist thousands of such artifacts throughout France, and at the current pace, their re-importation would seem improbable for ages to come.
Some people, however, are more pragmatic and consider that the damage is done and will be there forever and even most of the damaged artifacts can now only be linked to those whose intent was to bring them into damage. Diop’s lens refrains from making any assessment of the discourse but rather bears witness to it in a gentle way as it aids in dialogues being brought on the screen and off the screen. The existence of such people is sorely felt by the people and to look at them is to mourn over what has been unjustly taken away but they do not completely portray the gradual path to recovery of the optical body of the plundered objects. If history is not different from history then the self has to be always regarded as some or the other crevices of their history. The Colonisation Trauma and Dislocation which involves the splintering of the self a self that exists at multiple points distant from one another and very often through force can never be truly understood without context of the trauma of Colonisation. This, combined with the world that you live in today, is a strong and violent start to the long and lonely process of rebuilding an identity that is now a blend of primalism and globalism for the people of Benin.
With a mere runtime of 68 minutes, the film “Dahomey” is way too short. Once the initial exposition is out of the way the dialog gets so engaging, that one wishes it was longer. Being Black anywhere in this world puts you in history which is a work in progress. We have all been colonized and the only cure for this is to address it. The idea of liberation is not just about regaining our lands, but also about fighting against the cultural genocide in which they are trying to erase core parts of us and rebuild societies that look like the colonizing tribes. Diop situates his “Dahomey” within the boundaries of cinematic imperialism and this pushes the spectator to take note of history because its ramifications are to be experienced by the coming generations. This is surreal, and sad and makes you question so many things and is a documentary that everyone has to see.
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