Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 12/10/23

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Neptune Frost (Anisia Uzeyman, Saul Williams, 2021)

Cast: Cheryl Isheija, Elvis Ngabo, Bertrand Ninteretse, Elane Umuhire, Dorcy Rugamba, Rebecca Uwamahoro, Trésor Niyongabo, Eric Ngangare, Natacha Muziramakenga, Cécile Kayirebwa, Diogène Ntarindwa. Screenplay: Saul Williams. Cinematography: Anisia Uzeyman. Production design: Cedric Mizero, Antoine Nshimiyimana. Film editing: Anisha Achyara. Music: Saul Williams. Costume design: Cedric Mizero.

Neptune Frost is ... well, what is it? An American-Rwandan anti-colonialist, anti-capitalist queer sci-fi musical about the confluence of the autochthonic and technology? If you go looking for more descriptives, you'll encounter concepts like "cyberpunk" and "Afrofuturist" that seem appropriate but also insufficient to characterize the film. And don't expect any spoilers here; I couldn't go into particulars on the plot if you forced me to. It starts in a coltan mine: That's the ore from which the stuff that helps run our computers and cell phones and whatnot is refined. It's a "conflict mineral": Wars, trade and otherwise, are fought over it. And then the story moves, through the peregrinations of our protagonists, Neptune, played by both Cheryl Isheija and Elvis Ngabo (the character is intersex), and Matalusa (Bertrand Ninteretse, aka Kaya Free), to an e-waste dump that becomes a hacker community that takes over the world's computers. Confused? Just go with it: This is an extraordinary movie, both in the watching and in the backstory of how it was made. There is poetry and wit here that needs more than one viewing to assimilate. For example, the name Matalusa is a Joycean pun: "martyr and loser," and by the end of the film it becomes Matalusa King -- Martin Luther King. It's full of music and color -- a special nod to Cedric Mizero's costume design. Maybe it's not a film for everyone, but I am dazzled and baffled by it.