The "WTF?" Factor: Nine Muses

Do you have what it takes to go Plotless? Every year, Sundance's "New Frontier" series invites us to be boggled, puzzled, and provoked. This year, the "WTF?" factor was high.

Waves of African and Asian Immigrants to Britain, glorious shots of pristine Alaskan landscape, quotes from Shakespeare and Beckett, constantly crescendoing, ominous sub-woofer groans:

What do all of these have in common? Good question. That is the point.

During Josh Akomfrah's Nine Muses (recently picked up by New Wave Films), my mind raced between the images, trying desperately to construct some sort of coherent or even intriguing narrative. Here we are looking at these Gore-Tex-clad wanderers as they look at the landscape. This "Look at the Lookers" trick is as old as Caspar David Friedrich's "Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog" form the early 1800's. So what do we see?

The film is frustratingly opaque, which is not a bad thing. This kind of mental narrative-building exercise is fantastic for the mind. But the film is a strange combination of ambiguous and over-determined. Akomfrah also manages to lay it on pretty thick with images of burning buildings, racial riots, and kids in the dirt. So the film is a paradox--heavy-handed and opaque.

And LOUD. Holy Mother of Eardrums. Half of the audience had their hands over their ears. Every swelling opera aria was like having a tooth drilled, every ominous musical groan (every other shot or so) caused physical pain. I began to dread any new scene--tears were streaming down my face. Not because I was moved, but because I was going deaf.

This volume problem probably had to do with the staff at the Broadway Cinemas, but the filmmaker was in the room with us, watching as we covered our ears and shrank into our seats. Did he enjoy watching us writhe? Was he just being polite to his Sundance hosts, not wanting to come off like a prima donna? I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on this one, but it ruined the movie.

I was intrigued buy the juxtaposition, the images of the desolate wasteland and the archival shots of immigrants coming to what they thought was the promised land. I liked the order imposed upon the pictures by the names of the muses. Mental work is good, and the photography was wonderful.

But I can't work when I am in pain. I was ready to hand in my credentials as a lover of experimental film and go watch "Laverne and Shirley." With the sound off.