For around 150 years, the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in Paris has been home to over seven thousand artefacts from the Kingdom of Dahomey, now Benin. The tale is as old as time; the French colonisers plundered to their hearts content, returning home with the spoils of war – and in doing so, ripping out a potent part of the culture and history. In 2021, the French government allows 26 artifacts to return to Benin. And it’s the decision, the journey, the destination, and the response that forms Mati Diop’s brief but beguiling documentary about what such a homecoming truly means.

Her sophomore feature after 2019’s fantastic Atlantics is starker, its filmmaking less dreamy but no less hypnotic. And right from the off, it’s clear that Dahomey is just as much of a ghost story. Diop’s confidence hasn’t waned – some succinct title cards give enough context for what the artefacts are and why they’re being returned, and then we just watch, patiently, as the procedure-like first half of documentation and categorisation and transport gives way to the emotional context later. She bleeds the modern context and opinions in slowly, delicately. The journey speaks for itself, and then we get the fascinating debrief.

Image courtesy of Les Films du Losange

Her directorial style at first is observational, restrained. With barely any dialogue she documents the painstaking journey home for the sculptures, the only editorialising being the ghostly voice of the artifacts themselves – “I am not 26, I am infinity” – a gamble that pays off surprisingly well. The artifacts have an otherworldly presence to them; the weight of history, culture, colonisation and identity are embedded in these stones, and the second half of the documentary takes a sharp stylistic turn as all these aspects are interrogated in an open debate by students at the University of Abomey-Calavi. What could (and should) have been repetitive and boring instead becomes more riveting than it has any right to be, purely from the passion of the students’ convictions. They barely agree on anything, which should be exhausting; instead it draws you in more than you could have imagined. One student’s passionate retelling of her own emotional reaction to the statues is both cheered and mocked. They scold, agree, and uplift each other. Most importantly, they listen.

Whatever opinion or perspective you have on the journey the stones have taken, it’ll be debated and judged by the students; who’s voices arguably matter the most. The sentiment is echoed movingly throughout. “I grew up with Disney, and Avatar and Tom & Jerry” says one student, who then eloquently pines for the childhood he could have had with these statues (and the knowledge of them) in his life. Every step of the journey back is litigated. They’re in the museum? What are we doing to allow young kids to actually see them? Are we grateful to France, or expecting more? Should we thank Macron for his decision or view it with the clear-eyed knowledge that it’s probably a PR stunt? But even if it is just a PR stunt, it’s a start, right? The number of differing opinions and perspectives and stories are dizzying, engaging, and almost exhilarating. Diop decolonises the gaze of the film by refusing to tell a reductively feel-good story about hallowed artifacts coming home.

She also dispenses with talking heads and verbose explanations, having the confidence in the young people to explain it for us. For the ignorant, our opinions are shaped by them. I think it’s a wonderfully optimistic thing. It’s clear from both this and Atlantics that Diop has a strong, unshakable faith in the younger generations. These statues, this history – it belongs to them. And for 68 generous minutes, they lend their voices to us.