A long-silent voice from a distant past — eerie and reverberating — awakens in the climate-controlled, antiseptic chambers of a Paris museum. The forum through which this entity communicates to us is Mati Diop ’s “Dahomey.” The French Senegalese filmmaker returns with a rich and absorbing exploration of the specter of colonialism that continues the enthralling, otherworldly quality of her 2019 breakthrough film, “Atlantics.
” “Dahomey,” a formally inventive documentary, traces the journey across continents of 26 artworks looted from the West African Kingdom of Dahomey that, in 2021, were returned to the modern-day nation of Benin (also the birthplace of voodoo). This repatriated collection represents a minuscule fraction of the 7,000 pieces the French pillaged from their former colony — and that number applies only to what they took from this one location among many. The voice emanates from the artifact labeled “26,” a statue of Dahomey’s King Ghézo.
In a stacked sound of multiple voices speaking at once, the statue vocalizes grievances in its native Fon language (also known as Dahomean). Poetic ruminations on imprisonment in a foreign land and yearning for a home that may no longer exist are supported by Wally Badarou and Dean Blunt’s entrancing synth score. Their alluring compositions sonically resemble the wonder of discovery with a hint of trepidation at the unknown.
The other artifacts include a sculpture of heroic King Béhanzin (which one .