Neptune Frost

A minute-by-minute analysis of Anisia Uzeyman’s and Saul Williams’ film, Neptune Frost (2021).

This book traces the complex structure of the film, working through its rich tapestry of images and sounds while exploring its dual themes of resource exploitation and extraction, and gender oppression.

Neptune Frost shows how Africa stands at both ends of the production cycle: minerals are mined from the soil and sent to the West to make electronic devices, and the detritus of broken and obsolete devices is ultimately sent back to Africa to be abandoned in waste dumps. An indigenous community of hackers establishes a utopian community in the midst of these wastes and seeks to seize power over the network. At the same time, the movie centres upon a trans character, who starts out as a man and then transitions into a woman. She flees patriarchal domination and abuse and, almost magically, embodies the counter-power of resistance.

This is all conveyed in the unusual form of a science fiction musical. Visions of altered technology are extrapolated ever so slightly beyond what actually exists, while song and dance convey the desires, dreams, and solidarities of characters who are rarely given voice in more mainstream cinema. The movie gives accessible human and more-than-human expression to the usually hidden forces that lie beneath the world we take for granted.