“Maybe you’re asking yourself, WTF is this?” Well, yes, I was actually. That question, posed by one of the characters about a third of the way through Neptune Frost, came as a relief, as it offered reassurance that the bewildering nature of this sci-fi, Afrofuturist musical was part of the plan. In the strange dimension created by the film—a poetic, protesting echo of our own—understanding and identity are both meant to shift, so it’s difficult to always know where you stand. Neptune Frost is a case where I’m best quoting from the press notes for a plot synopsis: “The film takes place in the hilltops of Burundi, where a group of escaped coltan miners form an anti-colonialist computer hacker collective. . . . When an intersex runaway and an escaped coltan miner find each other through cosmic forces, their connection sparks glitches within the greater divine circuitry.” The co-directors and guiding forces behind Neptune Frost are Saul Williams, an American artist who wrote the script and has an extensive career as a musician, poet, and actor; and the Rwandan-born artist and cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman. They’ve concocted a richly aesthetic experience: DayGlo makeup and costume design, incorporating elements like computer chips; arresting African landscapes; and Williams’ original songs, which are at turns angry and luminescent, spitting and celestial. If Neptune Frost plays like a visual album rather than a traditional movie (even a movie musical), it offers more substance than that description suggests. Ultimately, Neptune Frost shares a hopeful vision of revolution, in which an increasingly wired world allows for a voice to emerge that hasn’t previously been heard.
(7/13/2022)
