It’s a wisp of a factor, clocking in at barely over an hour. However the agile poetry and formal playfulness of Mati Diop’s beautiful hybrid documentary belies the burden and wealth of concepts inside. November 2021: 26 treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey, looted by the French within the late nineteenth century, depart the Musée du quai Branly in Paris to be returned to their homeland, now Benin in west Africa. Diop’s digicam paperwork the entire course of, from the cautious packaging of those irreplaceable artefacts, to the ceremonial dancing and joyous celebration that greets their arrival in Cotonou, Benin’s largest metropolis.
However that is greater than a handsomely photographed fly-on-the-wall account of a small gesture of reparation (the 26 treasures are just some of an estimated 7,000 purloined gadgets). Diop, whose earlier movie was the Cannes Grand Prix-winning Atlantics, offers a voice to the stolen gadgets with a lyrical textual content by the Haitian writer Makenzy Orcel, translated into Fon, and recorded in a collage of female and male voices. Most invigorating of all is a dynamic debate amongst college students on the College of Abomey-Calavi concerning the significance and which means of the objects and their return. British Museum, take word.
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