SNOWPIERCER, directed by Joon Ho Bong, starring Chris Evans,
Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer , Ed Harris, Tilda Swinton, and John Hurt.
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| John Hurt as Gilliam, Chris Evans as Curtis and Jamie Bell as Edgar in SNOWPIERCER |
SNOWPIERCER, directed by South Korean filmmaker Joon Ho Bong
(The Host, Mother), in his first English
language film, is truly an original,
inventive, futuristic work which transcends all previous apocalyptic films. He gives us a devastating concept of what may
happen not too far in the future. It appears that world government leaders,
corporate heads, and the clueless 1% had
refused to act to stop toxic emissions
and a “quick fix” radically affected the climate, causing the entire Earth, its
oceans, and all waterways to freeze. Every living thing has died except for a
hundred or so humans who were passengers on a high-speed, perpetual motion train.
The film opens to reveal that the train has
been endlessly circling the frozen globe for seventeen years. Third class passengers- families, including children born on the train
who know no other life- have been relegated to the last few cars.
They live in squalor, like concentration camp prisoners, and ravenously
gobble mass produced, slimy black “protein bars;" their clothes now shapeless, colorless
rags. They are kept in check by
fascist-like, heavily armed guards lest they try to make their way to first
class. The head of the guards is Mason
–Tilda Swinton- at her merciless best.
She is saved by being an unintentional comic figure. She lectures the lower classes on “the
eternal order” in which the privileged hold sway over “ungrateful scum.” She looks like someone’s worst idea of a Dean
of Girl’s in an all-girl boarding school, with her owlish glasses, unbecoming
false teeth, and straight brown hair clipped back with bobby pins. She barks out orders in a saliva-laced, strident
voice, wearing the white, militaristic
outfit of an overweight high-school marching band tuba player.
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| Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, and Octavia Spencer |
Trouble begins when Mason and one of her plus-size female
flunkies visits the third class cars, wearing a scarf
over their face to ward off the smell.
They’ve come to measure and recruit a young child, Tanya’s boy (the reason
is revealed later). Tanya is played by
Octavia Spencer in another strong, no-holds-barred role. John Hurt plays Gilliam, the wise-old sage to
whom they seek for advice. Hurt’s buddy
is Curtis, a young, healthy, handsome man of the Clive Owen type, played by
Chris Evans of superhero fame (Captain America, etc). As Robin is to Batman, so Jamie Bell’s Edgar is
to Curtis. Gilliam is trusted to
intervene for them with Wilford (Ed Harris, in a role not unlike the God-like
figure he played in The Truman Show). Those in first class live, eat, play, and
sleep under his protection . This is Wilford’s train. Enamored by railways as a toddler, he went on
to build and own them, and construct an empire of trains, eventually inventing
the perpetual motion engine that keeps his Snowpiercer running.
The landscape scenes
are stunning- a relief to the claustrophobic interiors. We watch as the ice encrusted train weaves its way through mountains, over icicle-draped
bridges spanning frozen rivers and lakes, past awesome frozen cities, their
landmark buildings barely discernible beneath icy carapaces. The passengers’ windows are iced shut so they
are denied the gorgeous vision of what is just inches away. When someone complains, the punishment is a
frozen body part which guards sledgehammer into pieces while the victim is left
to writhe in agony. When such an
incident occurred on top of the kidnapping of Tanya’s boy, they’ve had
enough. They must get to the front of
the train. Gilliam selects an unwitting
Curtis as leader.
They make their way from car to car, fighting the guards
with axes and makeshift weapons and gain the upper hand when Curtis realizes
that there are no bullets in their guns because bullets were outlawed decades
ago (would that this were so today). To access Wilford’s quarters, Curtis must get the secret code from the Inuit, Namgoong
Minsoo (Korean actor Kang Ho Song) , who is traveling with his daughter, Yona (Ah sung Ko). He is stoned on something called Kona, which
is compounded from chemical waste (The fact that he and Yona are Inuit and the
makeup of the drug are vital elements to
the film’s ultimate resolution) . He
will give Curtis the code as long as he is supplied with the drug.
Curtis and Edgar’s task is to key in a code to each door that separates the cars. Once open, they have a few seconds before
they close. The ensuing battles are gory, violent and bloody. The guards closest to the front of the trains
do have bullets. One pierces a window; a wounded Namgoong lies there watching a tiny snowflake drift in through the hole;
his eyes light up and you wonder what he is thinking. Curtis, Yona and the others pass from one
car to the next through startling scenes of sunlight streaming through glass
domes on lush gardens, greenhouses with fruit-bearing trees, vegetable patches,
and domestic animals; one car is a
night-club with a rave going on as trendy first classers drink and dance to
techno–rock. There’s a sedate club car
where patrons sit quietly drinking and reading.
They react in revulsion and horror as the masses and guards hack and shoot their
way through.
The film is full of surprises: There’s a scene in a typical grade school
class in one of the forward cars. The pregnant
teacher leads her students in a song about what happens when the engine breaks
down. They repeat the chorus in unison,
singing: “We all freeze and die,” with appropriate arm-waving. She then pulls a gun and starts shooting at
Curtis and his followers. Wilford’s hefty
female employees look as though they haven’t progressed from the 1950s’ clean,
scrubbed look and style.
A bank vault-like door finally opens onto Wilford’s luxury
car as he, dressed in a long silk robe, is sautéing a steak while Curtis looks
on, hungrily. Wilford babbles on with his
evil, airy philosophy about his oligarchic goals and dreams, and reveals a
startling clue about his relationship to Gilliam. As David Denby stated in the July 7 & 14 issue
of The New Yorker, comparing films like “Elysium” and “Hunger Games,” he says, “Snowpiercer presents a portrait of oligarchical rule and
underclass discontent. Fueled by disgust of the decadent rich and
admiration of the outraged poor.” He then
asks, “Is revolution being hatched in commercial cinema?”
A version of this review can also be found in Socialst Action News. Go to www.socialistaction.org
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