by Ann Jones
That it’s hard to know where to begin writing about John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses is illustrated by the fact that this is my fifth, or is it sixth, attempt at an opening paragraph. And that’s just the ones I’ve actually typed; there are several more rattling around in my head. And none of them quite works. Do I want to start with the beauty of the thing? Or the fact that it’s made me yearn for snow even more (and I was already feeling more than a little disgruntled about the lack of snow this winter)? Or should I focus on Akomfrah’s use of colour? Or his interspersion of archive film with exquisite footage filmed in the snowy Alaskan landscape, or the extraordinary soundtrack culled from a diverse range of sources, or the framing of a film about immigration into Britain in the 1950s and 60s with Greek myth, or, or, or…
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