Neptune Frost (2021 | USA/Rawanda | 105 minutes | Anisia Uzeyman)
A futuristic look at life and death that still deals with the same struggles Black people suffer through today whether they’re American, Australian or African. Neptune Frost follows one person’s journey through life, the afterlife, and beyond in this strange tale of what it means to survive through the lens of social justice and technology.
I was fascinated and gawping for most of the runtime, waiting for one storyline to mesh with the others running rampant through the whole film. Was it several versions of just one character told from each of those perspectives? Was it three different characters wending their way through life and death eventually finding each other in an attempt to make sense of their shared experience? Or a third concept that completely escaped me? I’m still not sure, but the visuals, the dreamlike landscapes and Futuro-African costumes built a vivid patchwork, a feast for the eyes.
I think this one requires at least two views, if not more, to grasp what and where the key moments came together to complete the story. I feel like it should be showing at Slamdance instead of Sundance, but maybe the producers/directors consider Sundance more prestigious or the film didn’t meet the requirements (feature-length, no distribution in the US, and less than $1 million budget). Either way, it was much more metaphorical and intangible than I had expected and I’ll be ruminating on it for at least a week.
Neptune Frost premiered on 1/23 in the Sundance Film Festival’s Feature section.