Neptune Frost (2022, dir. Saul Williams, Anisia Uzeyman, US & Rwanda) by Kymm Zuckert

“Shining.” 

“Say what?” 

“Unanimous goldmine.”

I was listening to a movie review podcast and they were mentioning some recent independent films that they hadn’t had time to see yet, one being Neptune Frost, described as a sci-fi musical. I was immediately intrigued. Later that day I was looking to see if anything interesting was playing at the American Cinematheque, and there it was, Neptune Frost, that very night at 10p! Clearly, it was kismet. 

Beyond sci-fi musical, I did not know a single thing about the movie, which is always the optimal way of seeing a film, particularly one as unusual as this. On the other hand, they could’ve told me every single thing about the movie, and I still would have come to it fairly fresh, because it is somewhat on the opaque side.

Filmed in Rwanda, set in Burundi, in the languages Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Swahili, French, and English, it is about Black bodies being exploited for technology, and gender fluidity, and fighting against an authoritarian regime, with lots of singing and drumming and fluorescent colours. 

There is a boy named Neptune, (Elvis Ngabo), who later becomes a girl named Neptune, (Cheryl Isheja), who runs from their village after the preacher attempts sexual assault, and they hit him over the head and go. 

There is a coltan mine, where Black men, basically enslaved, dig for minerals to make cell phones, and a miner named Technology is casually murdered by the boss for working too slow. His brother, Matalusa (Kaya Free), also runs off. 

They finally meet up at a place that they both dream about, a place where there are other outcasts, and where they either plan to overthrow the government, or the government thinks they’re planning to overthrow the government, when all they want to do is live in peace.

I realize the above seems actually fairly straightforward, but immediately after seeing this film and for several days afterwards, I was completely unable to clearly explain the plot in any way. In watching it, I very rarely knew what was going on, but it was never boring. And though I didn’t really know what was happening, I could tell that the movie itself knew, and wasn’t just throwing things in the air and letting them land, it knew not where. The movie had a solid through line and plot, it just wasn’t always obvious to me as to what that was.

Neptune Frost is utterly original, a real experience, worth seeing either on the big screen or streaming, I guarantee you, you’ve never seen anything like it.

Kymm Zuckert is an actor/writer/native Angelino. When Kymm was a child, her parents would take her to see anything, which means that sometimes she will see a film today and say, “I saw that when I was eight, I don’t remember any of that inappropriate sex stuff!” Check out her entire 365 day blog @ https://365filmsin365days.movie.blog