Movie Review: The Woman King (2022)

The Woman King is a curious movie. I was entertained and absorbed for much of it, but as someone who’s fairly knowledgeable on the subject it covers, the West African kingdom of Dahomey, I found some aspects odd, perhaps a little troubling. First of all I will say that the marketing for this movie was bad. The trailer shows black women talking about fighting for freedom while girl power songs play in the background. When the main character Nanisca (Viola Davis) talks about fighting the enemy and for freedom there are shots of white colonists. This gives the impression that the Dahomey fought European slavers. When potential viewers conducted a little research and learned that the Dahomey were in fact massive slavers, seizing entire towns to sell on the coast, they felt lied to. They thought the movie was going to completely change history depict the Dahomey as heroic anti-slavery fighters. It did not help that Viola Davis tried to shame audiences by implying that anybody who did not see her movie was against black women. As it turns out these concerns can be both dismissed and verified. Let’s get into it.

The movie focuses on the Agojie, an all-female warrior unit. Black female fighters certainly checks boxes that are currently in vogue in Hollywood, but there is a firm historical basis. In the actual history they originated as a royal bodyguard, but thanks to a shortage of fighting men King Ghezo (portrayed by John Boyega in this movie) expanded it into a frontline unit. The Woman King thankfully remembers that the Europeans, the Portuguese in particular, were the Dahomey’s customer’s rather than enemies. In fact the film portrays the Oyo, a powerful Yoruba Empire, as the main antagonists. The Oyo had forced Dahomey into a tributary status, receiving annual gifts in exchange for no further invasions. This movie takes place in 1823, when Dahomey threw off Oyo domination.

Woman King does not ignore Dahomey’s role in slavery, but rather soft pedals it through several characters, minimal onscreen depictions of the institution, and the absence of Dahomey’s more, shall we say, controversial traditions (decapitating old people who can’t be sold, annual mass human sacrifice, etc.). The two main characters are actually loosely based on two named figures from later Dahomey history (in the 1890s). The main character is Nanisca, the leader of the Agojie. Since her actress, Viola Davis, is one of the producers, she gets to be one of the smartest and wisest characters. She pulls of intimidating warrior quite well, not surprising since Davis nailed the hard-edged Amanda Waller in the Suicide Squad films. She’s opposed to the slave trade and wants Dahomey to deal in gold, palm oil, and other products. The Agojie actually did prefer trading in palm oil rather than slaves, but this development came later on in the 1840s (more on this later).

The other main character is Nawi (Thuso Mbedu), a girl who evades an unwanted marriage by joining the Agojie. She serves as the audience surrogate, showing how the Agojie are trained and what they are about. Her story arc adds more relatable drama to the proceedings. The other female warriors are distinctive enough and are entertaining to watch in both training and action. Aside from King Ghezo we also get to see a couple Portuguese, one an unrepentant slaver and the other the son of a white father and Dahomean slave who wants to see his mother’s homeland.

The film’s narrative is for the most part faithful to history until the last act. The movie shows the slave trade, Dahomey’s tension with Oyo, and the relations with European slavers via the port of Ouidah. The Agojie training and rituals are also accurate based on what I know, down to the pile of thorny brambles that initiates must climb through to become true members. The only major historical deviations are the role of the Agojie and their opposition to the slave trade. The Agojie, while considered upper class, did not exert as much influence over the king and military as the film shows.  Viola Davis’ character, for example, is shown to be a personal favorite of Ghezo that he elevates to the status of “Woman King.” The other major deviation is the Agojie’s reasoning for their resistance to the slave trade. The movie portrays it as pan-African, with Nanisca claiming that all Africans are the same people. This would have been a very strange notion back in the day. Also the Agojie did not oppose the slave trade until the 1840s, when the British Navy began an anti-slavery war and blockaded Dahomey’s ports. They wanted to turn to other forms of trade to rescue Dahomey’s economy and gain legitimacy in international eyes. These changes are understandable, however, as it gives the audience a few characters to sympathize with and also acknowledges that some Dahomean in real life tried to steer their country away from the slave trade (if for less lofty reasons).

Where the film really goes off course is the last act, unless one is ignorant of the true history. Here, of course, be spoilers. The Oyo take some captured Agojie to be sold in Ouidah. Nanisca leads a small army to liberate them, tearing up the port and killing a bunch of European slavers in the process. First of all, no Europeans would ever want to trade with Dahomey for anything after such a brazen assault. Secondly, this signals a shift to the idea that Dahomeans became anti-slavery. This is cemented in a speech by Ghezo who says that they will no longer be used by the Europeans to kill and enslave Africans. Ghezo never countenanced ending the slave trade until the 1850s, and only after immense British pressure. Even then he reinstituted the slave trade because other products were not giving him the same profits. There was never any moral sea change in Dahomey’s government. If one knows their history, Ghezo’s speech comes off as the expedient lies of a politician rather than a sincere expression of pan-Africanism.

A better ending would have been more morally ambiguous. The film could still end happily Nansica and Nawi’s character arcs, but the king could refuse to end the slave trade. This could be followed up by a prophetic doom-and-gloom statement by one of the Agojie or a coda that explains how slavery was perpetuated and led to an excuse for the French to take over in the 1890s. In terms of filmmaking, the performances are all good, the visuals are neat, and the music does what it’s supposed to with some African instrumentation. Some might complain that the Agojie were not the super-incredible warriors presented, but the action scenes are cool and violent, with the battle with the Oyo being the highlight.

Overall, does The Woman King deserve all the controversy and anger it’s getting? I guess it depends on how you view historical movies. It’s more accurate than favorites like Braveheart and Last Samurai, but more troubling in how it glorifies participants in the slave trade (even with some invented characters showing opposition). One wonders how things would go down if Hollywood gave the same treatment to antebellum Southern slave traders or the Ku Klux Klan rather than black Africans (D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation exists for the latter). If you can put some of the real history to the back of your mind, this can be an entertaining two hours. There needs to be a more nuanced take on this part of African history.

Rating: 5/10

Note: There is an arguably more realistic film on Dahomey and the slave trade called Cobra Verde. It's one of many collaborations between Director Werner Herzog and actor Klaus Kinski (my favorite pairing of oddball Germans). It's entertaining in it's own way, though it does have topless teenage girls in one scene (this was back when bare-breasted African and islander girls were considered okay to show because it's their culture; I don't know about that).