Snowpiercer

The year is 2031 and the world is cold. Ice cold. Deadly cold. Seventeen years earlier – which is to say, now – measures were taken to correct global warming. The experiment was a disaster, freezing Earth completely and killing everyone and everything in the process. The few who lived are those aboard the Snowpiercer, a massive train that takes exactly one year to circle the globe. As the film begins, we become aware of the class system on the Snowpiercer. Those in the front of the train lavish in excess, while those in the back rot. They sleep on top of each other, covered in their own filth, eating “protein blocks” of shit. Many of them are scarred and missing limbs, for reasons I won’t disclose. All of them are ready for change.

That change is to take place at the behest of Curtis (Chris Evans, by far the best he’s been) a determined young man ready to take control of the train. He has followers, namely his right hand Edgar (Jamie Bell, fiery and fierce), and a vengeful mother, Tanya (Octavia Spencer, showing us something new). Gilliam (John Hurt) is their leader, but because he’s weathered with age and missing appendages, it’s Curtis who leads the charge.

There are barriers to cross. Locked doors, soldiers with guns, and a hilariously off-kilter person in charge named Mason. (I say “person” because I was never sure if Mason was a man or a woman. At one point, I could’ve sworn that a soldier referred to Mason as “Sir,” but because Mason is played perfectly by Tilda Swinton, it is of no consequence that the gender of the character is ambiguous.) Mason runs the day-to-day on the train, but the leader is a hidden man named Wilford. Wilford controls the train’s engine, and Curtis knows that if you take the engine, you take the train. And if you take the train, you take the world. So is his mission.

I’ve described the first 10 minutes of the film, the subsequent 116 are yours. And, believe me, these are minutes that should be discovered, preferably on the largest screen you can find. Although the film is contained within the suffocating walls of the Snowpiercer, it is massive in scope. Each breach forward is a venture into a new world. It allows the director, Korean mastermind Bong Joon-ho, to explore his limitless vision and create a new set piece every few minutes. The revolving scenery of the film is what helps move it along so briskly. There’s always something new for our eyes to fixate on – nothing is what it seems, and whether physical or philosophical, everything is a challenge.

As a viewer, my only minor challenge was getting through the film’s somewhat weighty conclusion. Rather famously, after The Weinstein Company acquired the American rights to Snowpiercer, Harvey Weinstein demanded that 20 minutes be cut from the picture. Joon-ho refused, and Weinstein kept the film in a holding pattern. The director didn’t budge, and the film now plays as Joon-ho intended. With that noted, I can see where Weinstein was coming from by suggesting the film be trimmed. Certainly 20 whole minutes could not be removed, but slimming down some of the third act monologuing could’ve help sustain the fast and furious pace of everything that came before. Many will disagree with me, but my ultimate point is that I got what the characters were saying (and, more tellingly, what they were going to do) long before their grand soliloquies were finished.

This is not meant to detract anyone from Snowpiercer. It is a great sci-fi film that deserves to be seen and discussed. The blatant political commentary alone is enough to fuel hours of post-movie conversation. I loved the time I spent with it and will be eager to revisit it in the future.

Bong Joon-ho is a premiere member of the Korean New Wave cinema movement. His previous three films, Memories of Murder, The Host and Mother, were excellent studies of how people behave when pushed too far. Snowpiercer keeps with that theme, and it proves to be a very worthy English-speaking debut from a visionary filmmaker who always, thankfully, has something interesting to say. B+

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