International Theft

Theft takes many forms. In the international area, this includes the taking of artefacts from countries, African countries for example, by the European countries that colonized them. Such is the subject of the new film I recently saw, Dahomey, which is a sort of fact/fiction blend, an essayistic documentary, about 26 artworks that were taken from the Kingdom of Dahomey (now Benin) by France during Africa's colonial period.

The film is short, 68 minutes, but leaves you plenty to chew on. And its point of view is intriguing. The story begins (during the Covid pandemic) in the Musee du Quai Branly -- Jacque Chirac, a museum of non-European art in Paris. We see a number of artworks being packed into crates by museum workers, and gradually we come to realize that these works are being shipped from France to Benin as part of a repatriation process. We gather that there's been a campaign, ongoing for years it seems, for France to return to Benin treasures they have taken from the country. The odd thing is that a voice starts talking to us, deep, guttural, vaguely human, and we realize that the voice we're hearing is the internal voice, in discussion with itself, of one of the statues being packed for departure. It has a male voice and says it has a name. But the workers handling it don't seem to know its name. This bothers the statue a little bit. "Don't they know I have a name?" it says. What is wrong with them? They insist on calling it "Number 26". And we understand that it is the 26th piece of the 26 pieces France is returning to Benin, though the fact that it has a name (an African name) and that they don't seem to know that name or care and distinguish the statue by a numerical value does of course have a resonance to the way Africans themselves, I mean human beings, not statues, were handled and identified years ago when they too made an oceanic journey one can only call involuntary.

Number 26 is a statue represening King Ghezo, who was the real-life king in Dahomey from 1818 to 1859. The voice-over from the statue then becomes one that has a timeless quality to it, reflective, philosophical, wry, as it comments on its trip back to its homeland. There with the other 25 objects returned to Benin, it is installed in a museum in the city of Abomey, and we see how this repatriation becomes a major event in Benin. Dignataries come, stuffy people, somewhat artificial looking, like dignataries everywhere, and the museum then opens its new exhibit for the public to see. Through it all, the statue "talks", telling us what it thinks of its time in France, its memories, and what it thinks about its return to its much changed homeland.

The heart of the movie, and its best part, is the final section, an extended section in which Benin university students debate the value of the repatriation of the artworks. The young people talking are the future of Benin, obviously, well-educated, passionate, opinionated, and they have much of interest to say about France returning what they stole from their country. Viewpoints vary. One student says Emmanuel Macron let this happen to make himself look good; after all, France only returned twenty six of hundreds of artefacts it took from Benin. Another student says that having the statues in a museum for all in Benin to see is great, but how are most people in the country, poor, without means to travel far from their villages, supposed to come and even look at the pieces? The talk is lively and often humorous and all the students are civil. It's a thought-provoking and stirring section of the film and essentially the film's climax. Things are left open-ended, as they must be. 

Will Benin ever get more of its treasures back from France? How many people in Benin will actually go to to see these artefacts? The legacy of colonialism is a complicated one, and in little over an hour this film gets into a lot. Mati Diop is the director, she the person who made the superb Atlantique five years ago and who also co-starred in Claire Denis' 35 Shots of Rum years back. Living in New York City, I was able to see Dahomey in a theater, but if you can't see it that way, keep an eye out for it if and when it streams. It's worth it.