It is a country of dreams and revolt born in the cinema. This Wednesday, May 10, finally comes out in theaters our favorite of the Cannes Film Festival 2021. Neptune Frost is an unprecedented cinematic madness, defying, with creativity as the only weapon, the oppressive powers in Africa – from the postcolonial system to the Gafam. A danced and musical science fiction, directed by the American Saul Williams and the Frenchwoman of Rwandan origin Anisia Uzeyman.
This is the story of a war that does not say nameless and of a love between Neptune, an African hacker fleeing sexual violence, and Matalusa, a young miner escaped from a coltan mine. All in a completely new afrofuturist aesthetic. Shot in Rwanda and imagined in Burundi, this cinematographic musical comedy brings together song, dance and poetry. An epic and dreamlike poem against the violence of the world.
Poetic and positive
With an afrofuturist and intersex aesthetic, Neptune Frost creates a space for reflection on identity and gender, the right to be different and the quest for somewhere else. We are witnessing the promise of a new world that opposes greed through beauty, cruelty through creativity, despair through the outline of a future. In the midst of a world that is going badly, a radically poetic and positive universe emerges.
It’s a breathtaking film, nourished as much by cyberpunk comics of the 1980s with their android RanXerox, as by 2046the extraordinary time machine Wong Kar Wai, or the dizzying fantasy of Solaris by Andrei Tarkovsky.
So far, the French director of Rwandan origin Anisia Uzeyman has directed Dreamstatesbut was best known as an actress in Tey by Alain Gomis. And the American poet, actor, musician and activist Saul Williams co-wrote slam, by Marc Levin. Their first collaboration fuses the strength of Williams’ dream with the power of Uzeyman’s Rwandan origins. Here, everything is sensations, emotions, allusions… The story advances through etheric bodies interconnected by vibrations with other beings and intelligences. Neptune Frost makes palpable extrasensory perceptions hitherto unknown in cinema, beyond human space-time. And thanks to the incredible creations of set designer and costume designer Cedric Mizero, the protagonists of Neptune Frost break down all barriers related to status, age, origin and gender, between human beings and technologies, between the traditional, the artisan and recycled.
The call of a distant planet
” I was born in my 23rd year, after 22 years of war “, says at the beginning of the film a woman in glued braids, her face hidden behind a mask made of metal wires. Here we are invited to a funeral where the priest speaks of the expectation of another life. In the meantime, Tekno, a coltan miner in revolt, must flee. Throughout the film, death will await him, because he has understood: it is coltan that transmits the energy circulating in computers all over the world. For him, one more reason not to suffer the contempt of the multinationals.
The coltan mine appears in the form of a choreography of gestures, punctuated by Burundian drums. With simple, but garish and colorful costumes, the scene becomes as grand as the mine around. This is where the wealth of some and the poverty of others are created. ” The scavengers won’t let go of us », sings the song.
It is a question of the suffering caused by a labor force exploited by neocolonialism. At the same time, an African hacker who is in the process of taking his independence, wonders about the victory of the binary world. In an atmosphere of the end of time, we observe an eclipse of meaning and a fire in the sky. On the head of the hacker character, who assumes his intersex identity, turn fluorescent wheels. Like the call from a distant planet, from another dimension.
THE land of clairvoyance
Embarked on a boat, we move away from the shores. Tekno, on the other hand, puts on stilettos to enter into another identity. ” No return possible “, informs us the song. We come across resurrected ghosts and the clothes of Afro-futurism. Everyday gestures are transformed into song, poetry, choreography. The oscillation between several worlds is stunningly beautiful.
Another main character is an avatar, made up of recycled monitors, computers and other machinery. The motherboard is bleeding. The power of the subconscious grows, wisdoms appear: What birth separated, love will reconnect. » « Draw your dream and dare to live it. »
Welcome to the land of clairvoyance, where ” the mountains have not woken up and a person is called “Psychology”. ” Me, I was born from sound. Sound retains memory. »
Here in this community looking for a better future (bye-bye Martyr Loser King ”), we free ourselves from norms so that the different struggles against oppression can converge. To recount these fights against the Gafam (a song is titled ” Fuck Mr. Google “, another one ” The algorithm is justice “), patriarchal society or corrupt politicians, all narrative forms are allowed. A freedom born of dreams. A dream country born in the cinema, Neptune Frost.