Metacritic-Rezensionen

Dahomey begins where Statues Also Die ended, wondering what remains of our identities when the things those cling onto suddenly disappear––then resurface from oblivion. To this, Diop offers no clear answers. But in the heart-shaking passion of that university debate, in those students’ resolute commitment to reappropriate their own narratives, she finds something rarer still: a snapshot of a generation for whom this isn’t just the story of a restitution. It’s a resurrection.

Diop folds the poetic into the political, without ever becoming didactic.

Dahomey is a striking, stirring example of the poetry that can result when the dead and the dispossessed speak to and through the living.

Mati Diop’s captivating, fabulistic documentary Dahomey confronts the reality of how modernity has been shaped by the West’s theft of cultural heritage.

Beautiful, melancholy and intellectually stimulating, “Dahomey” is a documentary that should be seen by all.

It is an invigorating and enlivening film.

[An] agile, cerebral film.

At just over an hour, Diop’s strange, captivating and rigorously intellectual film leaves a mighty impression well beyond its compact length.

The film avoids polemic and instead presents itself as informed and inquisitive blueprint for the ways in which we discuss anti-colonialist action.

For those who know little about the subject matter, Dahomey is a bold and memorable history lesson. But with Diop’s expressive talents as they are, it’s fair to hope that she returns to the world of fiction next time.