Plunder Years: Diop Reflects on the Complex Realities of Reparation
The spirit of Ozymandias, the classic poem from Percy Bysshe Shelley, might rouse itself in one’s mind during Mati Diop’s short but passionate documentary Dahomey – “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Detailing the return of twenty-six artifacts from France to the Republic of Benin, which were among thousands plundered from the Kingdom of Dahomey by French colonialist troops in 1892, it’s a depiction of a journey with so much more going on beneath the surface than an exchange of cultural artifacts. Utilizing some effectively poetic and fantastical elements herself, Diop attempts to give voice to the past and marry it to the voices of the present, where it’s impossible to divorce oneself from the wreckage wrought by colonialism.… Read the rest
