Neptune Frost, a Rwandan/American science-fiction musical co-directed by Saul Williams and Anissa Uzeyman, was initially conceived as comic book and musical by multi-hyphenate actor/rapper/writer Williams and further developed into this film. The plot, which feels less like a concrete series of events and more like a dreamy journey, follows a futuristic society in Rwanda. The world is entirely changed and technology has reached new heights, with tech invading the mind, bending reality. However, many things stay the same, such as social inequities, corruption, prejudice.
Throughout the film, we follow two characters whose storylines eventually collide. There’s Neptune, the intersex runaway who leaves their village after a horrible encounter with a priest, and Matalusa, a miner whose brother Teckno is abruptly and cruelly killed by an overseer of the coltan mines. Neptune runs away, navigates through the land on the run, encounters strangers that mean them harm. The character encounters a man in their dreams (like an Afrofuturist fairy godmother) and Neptune wakes up more “feminine” and is also played by a different actor. Matalusa leaves his mining job and encounters a hacker collective that exists in another dimension but is attempting to disrupt the oppressive system in place. It’s a diffucult film to describe, though describing the progression of the film’s story as a kaleidoscope of colors, rhythm, music and shifting genders, dimensions, and landscapes feels most accurate. While trying to hold the scenes in one’s view, the images and reality of what we are seeing keeps shifting, elusive and impressionistic: we follow Neptune, who is then changed, and then they are in a forest, and then they are in a dream. The vague structure of the film is both exciting in an artistic sense, recalling performance art, allowing inventive and confounding moments, but at times creates a sense of confusion or slowness.
The songs are fascinating; they’re not what we might expect from a western understanding of a “musical,” but taking in traditional, lyrical, and hip-hop elements. The lyrics, which are an extension of the dialogue, are often poetic, reflecting on the conditions the characters are in, the oppressive of their society, technology, identity, playfulness and daring. One wonderful and head-banging rap from Matalusa halfway through the film has a great beat and hilarious, beautiful lines, such as “Straight man with a gay ghost/ She passed, in topaz, we brushed hands/ I took note…Girl boy girl boy girl boy girl boy.” The lyrics — much like the dialogue — have a frenetic and yet also vague quality, capturing the altered reality of this futuristic society yet also hard to grasp. The moments of more concrete conversations and details, especially when we are following Matalusa’s storyline and his convergence with the collective, are the most exciting. The specifics of goals, actions and consequences give us a way to anchor our understanding of the characters and larger world.
The visual aspects of the film are by far the most engaging and sometimes, nearly rapturous, combining bright colors, traditional clothing, and imagined futuristic elements that are clever and psychedelic. Colors burst in neon, hair is braided in pinks and reds in new hairstyles that are distinctly Black and yet also futuristic, an amazing visual combination we hardly ever see. The police wear metal masks made from wires, and bright pink uniforms. Characters wear metallic, sequined dresses. Some sequences seem to occur on a digital plane, with swirling visual effects, static, screens. There are also the real-life surroundings of Rwanda that are incorporated into the film, the sites of the people and buildings and lush green landscape of the country.
Ultimately, Neptune Frost is a highly original visual feast with organic, inventive musical moments that are unlike anything most people have seen. There are Black people, African (specifically Rwandan) people, depicted in the film, seen through a daring, futuristic, queer lens. However, the dreamy and frenetic quality of the plot and script don’t give enough for the viewer to hang onto. In the future, reality may be different, characters may speak in impressionistic, patchy ways, but this vagueness does not serve to engage the viewer in a clear story and characters can be anchored to. One has the sense of watching something similar to Beyonce’s Black is King; brilliant, inventive, dazzling, but more of a brilliantly artistic extended music video than a clear film, or even performance art piece. However, Neptune Frost’s ambition and imagination make it worth the watch.
Photo courtesy of Kino Lorber
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