Forget the treasure hunt. Dahomey documents a treasure return, and wow does it satisfy the soul.
The backstory is that France is finally returning important cultural artifacts to the land from which France had stolen them during its colonial occupation (now considered Benin).
The main story is that people care about it. The return and the crime. And so the moviemakers very intelligently just set the camera down and let us watch as the people of Benin speak for themselves, one by one.
In differing languages and with differing ideas, the citizens take turns with the mic. This is thoughtful, emotional stuff.
It isn’t how all the people feel, of course—the people and the kingdoms from which these artifacts were stolen are long dead. But the moviemakers create space for them, too, by imagining how they might feel . . . by having an artifact awaken and speak to us . . .
This is a mildly outrageous act of imagination, to pretend that we can imagine how someone from the past feels about their culture being lost. But it stimulates our own imagination, and so, there’s something to it. The voiceover resonating deeply through our chests helps.
Dahomey explores legacy by watching today. For both the colonizers and the colonized, it is something special.