Snowpiercer

Daniel: In humanity’s attempt to fix global warming they inadvertently create a new ice age that is incapable of sustaining life. A visionary was prepared for just such an occasion. Wilford made his vision a reality by creating a virtually indestructible train that is capable of sustaining life for what is left of humanity. This creates a class system; one where the extremely wealthy are at the front of the train and the extremely poor are at the back. Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer follows the actions of a revolution that is staged by the back passengers to take over the revered “engine” of the train. This adaptation of a French graphic novel shows the desperation of humanity and the polarizing effects of wealth. The film touches on a number of social issues while simultaneously being extremely entertaining. It’s violent, shocking and unique in its premise. Bong Joon-ho’s personal flairs shine through, which is fun to see with a film that is primarily in English as opposed to Korean. Chris Evans leads a cast of recognizable actors train-car by train-car through this fresh take on the post-apocalyptic genre film.

I’m interested to hear your initial overall thoughts on this one, Paul. I really enjoyed it myself, it was sleek, bleak and different for the genre, incorporating a level of beauty in the filmmaking that was unexpected. I also loved the conglomerated cast, never thinking I would see the likes of Song Kang-ho and Octavia Spencer on screen together. But it added to the realism of what Snowpiercer was.

Paul: I want this train. That might not be quite the message this movie was trying to convey, but what can I say? The train is incredibly cool. The movie itself probably doesn’t earn many points for originality, telling the same basic story we’ve seen in recent films like the Hunger Games series and Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium. But Snowpiercer tells that story better than either of them. I don’t think I’ve seen this kind of unity of plot, theme, and setting from an action film in years. This class-based society operates on what we might call “train logic.” There’s no hope of the poor becoming rich, because you can’t expect a train car to switch places with the one in front of it. It’s amazing how important a simple detail, like the presence or absence of windows, can be to a person’s self-perception. The film effectively restricts us to the point-of-view of its protagonists. We discover along with them how different the front of the train looks compared to the back. It all starts with the appearance of a yellow coat in the dingy brown environment that the poor call home — a provocative glimpse of a different world.

We could go into all the dumb reasons this movie isn’t one of the biggest blockbusters of the year, but it all comes down to marketing, or lack thereof. To be fair, there are plenty of people who would be turned off by the R-rated violence of this film. And there might be some who don’t appreciate just how weird this movie is. But I think, for this genre, a little weirdness is more than welcome. Daniel, this is the first Bong film I’ve seen, but I believe you’ve at least seen The Host. What are some of those “personal flairs” you mentioned?

Daniel: Bong has a way of taking the weird and making it seem natural. This is the third of his films I’ve watched, and it’s amazing how vastly different they’ve all been from each other. The Host was a creature feature that was part Jaws and part Jurassic Park. The Good The Bad and the Weird was, as the title suggests, a western. It’s set in an alternate history where gunslingers and martial artists combat. In these three films he’s used Song Kang-ho to his fullest. The stories are weird and he never really shies away from showing the action on camera. His shots are often set so that the viewer is able to glean as much information as possible from the frame we’re currently watching.

I haven’t seen a great number of Korean films in general, but they tend to have a different flavor from American cinema. I think that was another aspect that I enjoyed with this one. It was a film written by (adapted rather) and directed by a Korean filmmaker, it had a largely English-speaking cast and was based on a French graphic novel. It often felt like an American summer blockbuster, but with an accent. You mentioned marketing being an issue with the film, and from what I’ve heard this was a huge factor between Bong and the distributor. There was some concern over Western audiences being confused about the premise. It truly is a shame this didn’t get a wider release, but I was pleased that it was available to rent online while it ran its small course in theaters.

Paul: I appreciated this movie’s sense of humor. Even as it is, this is a brutally intense two hours. But the actors are given free rein to experiment with a lot of wild ideas. Sometimes they go over the top — the schoolroom scene with Alison Pill, for example. I didn’t love that scene, but I have to admit it was an interesting and (relatively) natural way to fill in some exposition. Then there’s Tilda Swinton, who practically steals the movie with her crazy accent and zealous commitment to the cult of “Wilford.” The protagonists, understandably, aren’t inclined to have that much fun, but we still get to see Octavia Spencer cracking an eggshell on an obnoxious little kid’s forehead. Song Kang-ho and Go Ah-sung are a lot of fun to watch as well, as a father and daughter who know more about the train than the leader of the group. This leads us to Chris Evans as Curtis Everett, the one performance that I thought fell short. Evans is a likable actor, and he’s not bad here, but both his real name and his character’s name sound like Action Hero #627, and I can’t say his performance ever really breaks out of that. It’s hard to see why this guy is supposed to be destined to lead the revolution. I had a similar problem with last year’s Pacific Rim, another ambitious cross-cultural action film. There are a couple major revelations near the end that make the character quite a bit more complicated, but even then Evans doesn’t seem to know what to do beyond looking dismayed at everything. However, he’s a pretty effective audience surrogate, determined to reach the front of the train and clear up all the mysteries. Maybe that’s all we need.

Daniel: The schoolroom scene was an absolutely fantastic contrast to the reality that took place at the rear of the train, and it was funny to boot. Humor is a difficult thing to use in such a grim setting. They’re used sparingly but are put to good use when they show up. The film was absolutely beautiful. The use of colors and the detailed sets and costumes left you no lack of things to look at. Really this movie was hand-tailored to a level that I was not expecting at all.

Unfortunately, I found Chris Evans almost comical in his exposition of character towards the end of the film. For the most part I thought it was pretty good, it shed light on some of the more vague facts surrounding the early days of the train, and it showed where the protagonists’ emotional basis was stemming from. But there was one line that I think was thrown in with the sole purpose to shock the audience, and it was dark but it derailed the scene for me because of how unexpected it was.

*spoiler, kind of* It was the line “I know that babies taste best” that was so unexpected that I couldn’t help but laugh slightly… and then feel terrible about it afterwards. *end of spoiler*

I never really thought about Evans as just being the audience surrogate. I think that’s a perfect example of how he was utilized. There are dozens of side-characters but he was the primary constant and he served his purpose well. It wasn’t as dramatic a performance as Tilda Swinton, for sure, but it wasn’t bad either.

Paul: That line really worked for me, actually. I think it arrives late enough in the film, when we’ve spent enough time being immersed in this world, that it has the effect it’s supposed to have. It’s right on the edge of being inappropriate, that’s for sure. Taken out of context, it’s practically indefensible. But I won’t forget it any time soon. There’s something to be said for that.

A little more on the humor and weirdness, because I think those are the most distinctive elements: there are some out-of-left-field visual references here that I just love. A character takes a step at one point that recalls Neil Armstrong on the moon. Wilford himself has a “Wizard of Oz” quality, which is unexpected in a post-apocalyptic film. My favorite would have to be the “Olympic torch” bit. It makes perfect sense in the context of the story, but it’s still deliberately silly. This moment comes in the middle of a very well-constructed fight sequence that takes place as the train crosses a bridge, and later a tunnel. The ways in which both sides gain the upper hand in this long and gruesome battle are pretty riveting from start to finish. The action in this film is choreographed and shot well, for the most part. There is some shaky-cam early on. I understand why it’s used: contrasting the chaos of the back with the luxury we’re about to see up front. But, yeah — shaky-cam is still a pretty lazy way to communicate chaos.

Daniel: As a rule I’m not a fan of shaky-cam filming either. I was pleasantly surprised at how little it was used. The sets were intricate and complex, and we were allowed to actually examine them, a rarity amongst this genre. My biggest problem with the first Hunger Games film was precisely how much they relied on the camera being unsteady to portray the dire situation that District 12 was in. I could have grasped that just as easily by getting a clear view of it.

One little thing I loved was the way holidays were celebrated on the train. Rather than marked by specific days they literally approached them in the form of landmarks. The best example of this was when both sides stopped fighting in the midst of battle to celebrate the New Year. Again, it was silly and unexpected as this movie often was, but it helped enrich the fictional culture that the train created. It didn’t seem frivolous or unimportant to the story; rather it served as a form of exposition on the characters. As they progress we learn more and more about each of the rebels and front passengers. As the rebellion progresses up the hierarchical rank of train cars, so our understanding of this strange world progresses.

Paul: I think it’s spelled out later that the train goes around the world in a year, which ends up being redundant, because the “New Year” moment is a great example of adding details in a very organic way. Another example is the punishment inflicted on a passenger for throwing a shoe. The narration has already explained that the world has frozen over, but that scene shows us exactly how cold it is. Before that, there’s the woman in the yellow coat taking the kids’ measurements. We don’t find out what’s going on there until the end of the movie, but the desperation of the parents trying to hide their children tells us they don’t expect to see them again if they’re taken. This all feeds into the desire to reach the front of the train, not only to overthrow the tyrant, but to fill in all the missing information as well.

Snowpiercer is a thrilling action film with nothing but pessimism for the fate of the human race. The movie is as cold and unforgiving as its setting, and the plot rushes on with the momentum of a speeding — nah, that’s too obvious. One of my first thoughts when the film ended was, “Poor Darren Aronofsky.” There are now three recent films that, in one way or another, capture the essence of the story of Noah. They’re called Take Shelter, Moonrise Kingdom, and Snowpiercer. Noah was a lifelong passion project for Aronofsky, but I think these other filmmakers did a better job with the material than he did. In any case, like Aronofsky, Bong Joon-ho plays with the disturbing idea that the world might be better off without us.

Tags: action, Bong Joon-ho, dystopian, Korean, Science Fiction, Snowpiercer, train