Neptune Frost, review

Neptune Frost

UK release: 4 November 2021

Director: Anisia Uzeyman, Saul Williams

Starring: Cheryl Isheja, Elvis Ngabo, Diogène Ntarindwa

Review by Phoebe

Neptune Frost is described as an “Afrofuturist fantasia musical” and “uncharacterizable” because it is, in its own right, completely unique. 

The film is a beautifully shot, poetic metaphor that plays on identity and the loss of our authenticity through political enforcement, consumerism, and capitalism. The cinematography captivates viewers with shots of vast open, natural space intertwined with vibrant and luminescent colors, hues of purples, blues, and orange as we move through the story. Representing the disparity between the modern and natural worlds.

Is it a love story? Or, a story of identity? A story of adventure and rebellion? Or, a guide showing us how to channel into our authentic selves in a world determined to control us?

The story begins in Burundi, in a male-populated metal slave mine, until circumstances force the main character, Matalusa (played by Bertrand), to leave.

Led by the dreams of an alien nature, we follow his journey to another dimension external to the political restrictions and authoritarian regime of the world surrounding him. There he meets Memory and Sound. 

Interweaved with his journey we meet Neptune (initially played by Elvis Ngabo) a man who is reborn into the beautiful Cheryl Isheja, echoing the phrase “I was born in my 23rd year”. 

The two are seemingly connected through the alien-like dream which guides them to one another in the dimension of Memory and Sound. We meet a few more key characters along the way: Psychology and Innocent, who seem to be corrupted by the external noise of politics, social media, and the internet. 

The conceptual piece indicates that our minds are being “hacked” by the internet - which is suggested through the opening song in Matalusa’s dream where he meets “Hack”, the guiding alien who leads him along his journey. It suggests that the internet, the media, and external political forces are hijacking our identities which are diminishing our creativity and corrupting our memory and our innocence. By connecting to the online world we’ve become disconnected from ourselves, from our own uniqueness. We conform to what’s deemed “acceptable” in order to “fit in”, but this merely isolates us from both ourselves and each other. 

Going against the societal grain seems alien, however, the story shows that through disconnecting from the online world, we are able to reconnect with each other. It shows the power of love and music, our most primal form of communication. And by channeling into the power of our own unique creativity we’re able to overcome the enforcement of the “powerful” by utilizing the forces of nature. 

Anisia Uzeyman and Saul Williams intricate use of music and colour depicts an Afro-surrealist representation of the complexities of the individual human experience in a western-centric world. The film is visually breathtaking, thought-provoking, and leaves you questioning what it really means to be human.