Son du serpent (2015)

Dance films are not really my thing. I'll put that out there straight away, because it's important context for everything I'm about to say about Son du serpent, a short film from Benin that I tracked down as part of my A-Z World Challenge. If you want to watch it yourself, you can find it over on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/295750954, because it's not like you're going to stumble across it on Netflix.

So, a short dance film from West Africa. Not exactly in my comfort zone. And yet, sitting with it, I found I could appreciate what was in front of me, even if it wasn't entirely clicking with me on a gut level. That feels like the honest position to take rather than pretending I was completely swept away or, on the other hand, dismissing it out of hand.

What genuinely grabbed me were the glimpses of Benin itself. There's something about seeing a place on screen that you've never really seen represented in film before, and this ticked that box completely. The choreography and the dancing, too, are clearly accomplished. Even if the form isn't one I naturally warm to, I can recognise skill when I see it, and there's real skill here. The movement has intention behind it, a sense of purpose that goes beyond performance for its own sake.

The detail that stuck with me most, though, was the white facepaint worn by the dancers. It looked to me like it could be chalk, and after watching I did a bit of digging. What I found was genuinely fascinating: that kind of white body paint carries significant meaning in parts of West African culture, often associated with ritual purity, spiritual renewal and the connection to the spirit world. It's not decoration. It's communication, a visual language speaking to something far older and deeper than the film's short runtime might suggest. That layer of meaning reframes everything you've just watched, and I appreciated the film a good deal more once I understood it.

That's perhaps the most valuable thing Son du serpent gave me: a prompt to learn. A short film from Benin sent me down a genuinely interesting rabbit hole about Beninese culture and spiritual traditions, and I came out the other side knowing more than I did going in. That's not nothing. In fact, for a film I might have otherwise shrugged off as not being for me, that's actually quite a lot.

My World Challenge has introduced me to some films I'd never have sought out otherwise, and this is firmly in that category. It sits alongside my experience watching Sugar Cane Alley, another film rooted in a culture and place I knew too little about, in that it reminded me how much film geography can teach you if you're willing to follow it somewhere unfamiliar.

Is Son du serpent a film I'd return to, or press into the hands of friends? Probably not, if I'm being straight with you. The dance film format remains a tough sell for me personally, and the short runtime means it doesn't have long to build much of a relationship with the viewer. But I'm genuinely glad I watched it. Two and a half stars feels right: not a film that worked for me fully, but one that gave me something real regardless.

Rating: ★★½  | Year: 2015  | Watched: 2025-05-21

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