The Nine Muses review

Full of visual vigour and intellectual rigour, this cine-poem explores post-war Caribbean and African immigration to the UK via the narrative prism of Homer’s The Odyssey .

Sliced into nine chapters, each of which relates to a particular Greek muse, British writer/director John Akomfrah shuttles between widescreen digital images of Alaskan landscapes and archival footage of immigrants in ’50s/’60s West Midlands.

Backed by audio of famous literary texts, it’s a demanding, high-brow watch, yet ably conveys the rootlessness and dislocation of the immigrant experience.