Heritage Regained

A fantastical documentary follows the return of 26 plundered artworks to Benin.

- ALISON WILLMORE

IT'S ONLY 68 minutes long, but in that stretch of time, Dahomey crosses continents, considers the ongoing effects of colonialism from multiple angles, and moves from the metaphysical to the mundane. Mati Diop's second feature film shares elements, interests, and a distinctive restlessness with her 2019 debut, Atlantics-a supernatural Dakar-set romance about desperate young men who can see a better future for themselves only across the ocean-though it falls, however unconventionally, within the realm of documentary. It's only appropriate that a filmmaker so focused on interrogating how seldom borders actually circumscribe the people, history, and cultures they are meant to contain would herself make a work that transcends genre.

DAHOMEY DIRECTED BY MATI DIOP MUBI, NR.

Dahomey is nonfiction, observing the November 2021 return of 26 royal artifacts that had been looted from the kingdom of Dahomey by the French in 1892 and that are being repatriated to the present-day country of Benin. But among the voices included

like a dense, avant-garde essay onscreen.

The camera, almost always still, captures odd moments of humanity, whether that's a guard noodling on a phone while walking the grounds of the Palais de la Marina in Cotonou at night or a student dozing off during a debate sequence.