FILM REVIEW: NEPTUNE FROST (2022) DIRS. SAUL WILLIAMS AND ANISIA UZEYMAN
Neptune_Frost_OSP4©ChrisSchwagga
Written by Belle McIntyre
For anyone unfamiliar with the term Afro-Futurism, Neptune Frost is an immersive, hallucinogenic and extravagant introduction. It is emphatically an ode to the miracles of technology in all its glorious artificiality and simultaneously a window into the dark, ruthless oppression it has generated by its enablers and consumers in order to feed the beast which electronic cyber progress has created. It is a clear indictment of colonialism and rampant capitalism.
In an early arrestingly beautiful and terrible scene of scores of coltan miners worthy of Sebastiao Salgado, we witness the senseless murder of Tekno by one of the guards. His brother Matalusa, who has witnessed this unprovoked casual cruelty is driven half-mad with grief and impotent rage and is pushed over the edge. Matalusa, a skilled hacker, leaves his village in Burundi, the mine and his family without explanation or direction, with scant resources or any idea where he is going or what he is looking for. All he knows is that the current reality of that moment is not tolerable. His belief that there is something better is all that he has.
Neptune_Frost_OSP2©ChrisSchwagga
A similar incident in a Rwandan village drives Neptune, an intersex hacker devoted to disrupting binaries, to leave his troubled country in search of a better way of life. As he walks he pulls out of his rucksack a pair of high-heeled strappy sandals which he tries on intermittently. Eventually we see him in full drag wearing a beautiful red flowing caftan, elaborate braids and futuristic makeup and looking very beautiful.
Eventually both Neptune and Matalusa find their way through an invisible portal to another dimension where other rebellious Black hackers with allegorical names like Memory, Psychology, and Innocence are trying to upend the status quo by taking power away from totalitarian authority. In their alternative universe they have managed to harness power totally off the grid and Matalusa and Neptune manage to hack the worldwide internet. It takes the world by surprise and the news assumes it is Russia or China. Their greeting among themselves is Unanimous Goldmine which summarizes their vision of a fairer world.
A scene from Neptune Frost, courtesy Kino Lorber
This film is unlike anything I have ever seen in a good way. The director is also the writer and composer of the soundtrack. I forgot to mention that there is little dialogue. Mostly words are songs functioning like the recitative in opera. This adds to the otherworldly feeling. The costuming by Cedric Mizero is wildly creative using elements of techno ephemera in whimsical, enormously original ways with a DIY feeling. There is a cape fashioned out of keyboard keys, and fantastical head pieces and masks made from wires and oddments like terminals.
The makeup is often fluorescent. This is altogether a ravishing experience made possible by the extraordinary cinematography of Uzeyman, who is the partner of Saul Williams. There is a lot of raw talent exhibited in the cause of a message that is important and needs to be seen and heard.
