What thoughts would go through the mind of a king exiled from his country for more than a century? What if that monarch took the form of a wooden statue boxed up for transportation from France to west Africa? Would he worry about recognising his native land? Perhaps his musings might turn to the abstract: “Within me resonates infinity.” It would be a challenge for any film-maker to choose an inanimate object, however resonant, as her philosophical protagonist and narrator – but French-Senegalese director Mati Diop does just this to powerful effect in her new feature Dahomey.
Part documentary, part visual and sonic poem, Dahomey follows a consignment of historical artefacts as they are returned by the French government to their source in the former African nation of Dahomey, now Benin. This year’s winner of the Berlin film festival’s top prize, the Golden Bear, Dahomey is the latest triumph for Diop, 42, who for a decade and a half has been a much-admired presence in world cinema, first as an actor, then as a director. She made a memorable acting debut in 2008 in Claire Denis’s hypnotic urban reverie 35 Shots of Rum and later became the first Black female director to have a feature in competition in Cannes. That was 2019’s visionary Atlantics, a story of young Senegalese men who attempt the perilous journey to Europe by boat – only to return as ghosts.
