Luxor

"I don't remember much these days," confesses Hana (Andrea Riseborough) in this lush and ethereal rumination on the aftershocks of trauma. Arriving in the eponymous Egyptian city swaddled in oversized clothes, she spends her days drifting through the parched streets and temples like a sightseeing ghost, clearly a woman in crisis. The source of her malaise is sparingly hinted at by writer/director Zeina Durra, whose sparse dialogue repeatedly draws upon the history of Egypt, most tellingly in the story of the goddess Isis, whose connection to rebirth and rejuvenation is vital to our understanding of Hana. Measured and ponderous with immersive landscape photography that demands to be seen on the big screen, Luxor recalls the films of Joanna Hogg in its delicate, humanistic spirit. It is a slow-burn journey into the depths of suffering that rewards the faithful, and the ever-chameleonic Riseborough is nothing short of mesmerising.