Set in the near future, Neptune Frost tells the story of an intersex runaway named Neptune (Cheryl Isheja) and a disillusioned coltan miner called Matalusa (Bertrand Ninteretse), two strangers who share a prophetic dream of a radical communal utopia that dares to confront the international oppression and exploitation of the African continent and its people. The film is a psychedelic, Afro-Futurist odyssey. It’s punk, it’s revolutionary, it’s anti-racist and it’s queer. It’s a story that is captivating, vibrant and in many ways alienating, particularly for this white British writer. Oh, and did I mention – it’s a musical. For all these reasons and more, it’s also clearly a hard sell for uncertain audiences, but one that is absolutely worth the cost of admission. It might be one of the most unique experiences I’ve had a the cinema this year.
Writer/director Saul William’s narrative hits the ground running with its cacophony of image, movement and dance, its central characters experiencing social exclusion, sexual violence and discrimination before relocating to the aforementioned hacker collective that has set up a countryside hub away from the masses. The commune itself is a patchwork quilt of discarded PC monitors, motherboards and other pieces of technological debris, initially betraying the film’s lo-fi indie budget whilst simultaneously reflecting the group’s DIY charm, one that cares little for the sleek design of cutting-edge consumer electronics. Their use of technology is practical, political and always consciously suspicious of its potential to manipulate their own being and identity.
Driven together by some cosmic force, both Neptune and Mata come to recognise the collective as their adoptive home, a space and community in which they can be themselves, unbound by entrenched and binary notions of gender, love and identity. So crucial is their participation, that the collective comes to be named for the revolutionary Mata himself as the ‘Matalusa Kingdom’ – a homophonic echo of civil rights leader Martin Luther King – that itself becomes a rallying cry, one that is chanted, sung and screamed by the group in opposition against the aptly name ‘Authority’, an oppressive governmental force that seeks to condemn and silence anything or anyone that goes against its patriarchal and conservative ideology. Core to the collective’s power (alongside music and tech) is the otherworldly character of Neptune, whose relationship to (and origin within) the digital realm takes on a disruptive materiality that literally sticks a middle finger up to the screen as they channel the collective willpower, love and music of those who have welcomed them to their home. Building toward this realisation, filmmaker Williams and his cast delight in a variety of musical montages and set-piece sequences that bridge together emotion, space and character (if not an entirely legible narrative) into a feature-length mood piece that digs its hooks into the viewer and refuses to let up.
Built around Saul Williams’ musical background and storytelling, and in particular, elements of his 2016 album MartyrLoserKing (the title of that album being another homophonic refrain recited by characters in the film), Neptune Frost blends apparently discordant strands of genre cinema (sci-fi, musical, protest film) into a convincing whole; a trippy fever dream of grassroots political activism and inclusive love. It’s primary language is poetry and metaphor, but even at its most enigmatic, Neptune Frost’s radical energy breaks through the screen in a wholly enticing and often surprising way.
Notes from the Multiplex 