Dahomey: Why Is This 67-minute Documentary Worth a Golden Bear

This year’s Golden Bear was awarded to 41-year-old French-Senegalese female director Mati Diop for her second feature Dahomey, which was astonishing for many people since it’s only a 67-minute documentary, narrating how 26 pieces of royal treasures were returned to Benin by the French government. But remember, that last year the Golden Bear was also awarded to a French director Nicolas Philibert for his documentary On the Adamant, and that how amazing Mati Diop’s debut feature, Atlantics is, which won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2019 under the competition of a list of works from world-renowned film directors, like A Hidden Life by Terrence Malick, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood by Quentin Tarantino, Pain and Glory by Pedro Almodóvar, Sorry we missed you by Ken Loach and so on.

Although as a documentary, the film opens with a totally black screen with a distorted ghost-like voice-over. With disclosure of the lid, we find out that it represents the perspective of treasures loaded in the container. It’s reminiscent of possession of bodies by spirits of the men lost in the sea on their way to Spain for a better life in Mati Diop’s previous work, Atlantics. Both adopt a supernatural perspective and let the spirits speak, which could be seen as her authorial characteristic.

Apart from the spirits’ perspective, since it’s a documentary, there of course exist ordinary perspectives from people, which are actually the main part of the film. The whole process of transfer, examination and exhibition of 26 treasures is in detail displayed, along with how the Benin government dealt with it as a diplomatic matter and lively debates about the characterization of this event among local intellectuals.

One may now understand why a lot of film fans consider it unqualified for a Golden Bear due to the lengthy and “plain” documentary of the actual scenes, as well as the incoherence of inserting the supernatural voice in between them. However, in my opinion, the spirits’ perspective perfectly complements perspectives from the bureaucratic system and the civilians, and the supernatural voice activates the inner connection between all documentary materials. The voice of relics is an echo from history, telling painful memories of colonization and meanwhile inducing the reflection on how this modern country in the post-colonial era has been shaped and changed by the colonial history, through stating out their sense of unfamiliarity with the same land from which they were robbed of in the 19th century.

Moreover, from a standpoint of images, Diop was sensitive enough to capture the viewpoint of the relics and mutual gaze between the relics and civilians. After the relics arrive in Benin, it seems they gradually get released from the containers, wander around the huge royal garden where they’re stored and are super interested in this modern world, which are conveyed through a string of close-ups of the air-conditioner and surveillance camera, and scenery shots of the garden. A most impressive scene of the first mutual gaze, where right after the relics have been set up for exhibition, a curious construction worker is expelled by the security, brings the transition of the focus from the royal relics to the civilians, and foreshadows one of the themes in the following debates: how to make the exhibition available for everyone instead of a privilege for higher class.

In the last part, the “plain” documentary of debates further expands and elaborates on the themes about the legitimacy of requesting the returning of more relics, characterization of local culture and language from colonization and decolonialization, and equality in sharing the knowledge from the relics regardless of people’s hierarchy. The “plain” form makes the audience focus on the thoughts and ideology themselves and conveys an idea of democracy, by avoiding grandiose imagery techniques and returning the power of discourse back to the people.