The Nine Muses
United Kingdom, Ghana
2010
92 Min
Color, Black and White
English
Synopsis
Twenty-five years after the Trojan War, Odysseus has not returned home. His son, Telemachus, sets off on an arduous journey to search for his lost father. So begins Homer’s revered epic poem, The Odyssey, the narrative reference point for John Akomfrah’s breathtakingly cinematic documentary essay, The Nine Muses, a poetic and idiosyncratic retelling of the history of mass migration to postwar Britain through the suggestive lens of Homer’s epic.
Structured as an allegorical fable, and loosely inspired by existential science fiction, The Nine Muses is divided into nine overlapping musical chapters and sets a vast array of archival material to a script constructed from the writings of authors ranging from Dante, Samuel Beckett, Emily Dickinson, and James Joyce to John Milton, Sophocles, and Dylan Thomas. Akomfrah masterfully crafts this symphony of material into a coherent, highly original, and absorbing meditation on a journey toward self-discovery and a sorrowful song about searching for knowledge and identity. –Sundance Film Festival
Director
John Akomfrah
Born in Accra, Ghana on 4 May 1957, John Akomfrah is one of five children of Ghanaian political activists. He was educated at local schools in West London and at Portsmouth Polytechnic, where he graduated in Sociology in 1982.
Akomfrah is best known for his work with the London-based media workshop Black Audio Film Collective, which he co-founded in 1982 with the objectives of addressing issues of Black British identity and developing media forms appropriate to this subject matter.
Akomfrah’s work takes a deliberately questioning approach to documentary film. His debut as a director, the controversial and influential Handsworth Songs (1986), reworks documentary conventions to explore the history of the contemporary British black experience: the film won seven international prizes, including the prestigious John Grierson Award. Testament (1988) is a portrait of an African politician forced into exile after a coup d’etat. The emergence of Black Power in Britain is the inspiration… read more
Wall
Displaying 1 wall posts.
Nadin
21Mar12
This film is exemplary for my thinking that people have to stop thinking in frameworks. So often have I read negative comments on the film because people don't understand the coats. Well, do we need to? The Nine Muses is a fantastic documentary, very poetic and truly compelling. A brave, and yet for me successful representation of people's journey.
Related Films
Fans
Displaying 5 of 11 fans.
Articles
Our roundup of essays and articles on this film.
John Akomfrah's "The Nine Muses"
By David Hudson on January 22, 2012
A meditation on myth, memory and migration.
John Akomfrah's "The Nine Muses"
By David Hudson on October 6, 2011
One man’s “picture of intuitive, free-associational power” is a film that “adds up to very little” for another.
Lists
Displaying 5 of 11 lists.
Reviews
No reviews yet — Write the first
Forum
Displaying
0 discussion topics.