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Neptune Frost
After eight years of writing film criticism and putting out these annual best-of lists, I’m making a major change. This year, and going forward, my top ten films of the year list (which is really a top 25) will no longer be ranked in a “best to least” format.
I’m doing this because of several different factors which, when I thought about them together, convinced me that it was time for a change…
There is a sequence in the first half of Neptune Frost that references the biblical revelations of the prophet Ezekiel. An important character in the three major Abrahamic religions, Ezekiel is given a prophecy from God, who is accompanied in the vision by four cherubim that have “four wheels” that move alongside each creature.
In Neptune Frost, codirectors Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman reimagine this holy encounter with a mix of DIY style that manages to add to its ethereal, dream-like quality. The Ezekiel counterpart in the movie has a harness attached to his back with five bicycle wheels that slowly rotate slightly above and behind him as he moves. The addition of blacklight paint to the wheels and the characters in the scene makes the sequence even more mysterious and hypnotic.
