Snowpiercer
At this point in time we have had three prominent and visionary South Korean directors make their English language debuts. Chan Wook Park made “Stoker” that didn’t impress me too much besides some good acting from the cast. Kim Je-Woon made “The Last Stand” last year and while I haven’t seen the film yet, it’s safe to say that it was not what was to be expected from the director of “I Saw the Devil”. Finally, after numerous battles with Uncle Harvey, Bong Joon-Ho was finally able to release his apocalyptic sci fi thriller set aboard a train with an infinite engine of sorts. His film ended up being the best out of all three films by far.
The plot of the story is simple. Take the last surviving humans following a chemical freezing of the Earth, stick them on a train, and see what happens. What ended up transpiring was a class system where in everyone in the back of the train lived in conditions too horrible to be eve described by the word “poverty”, and everyone in the front lived in luxury. It has been seventeen years since the train first departed and there are many inhabitants on the train that were born there or were too young to remember the way the Earth used to be. The train is their Earth now. It’s all they know. All they know is confined to a few cars trailing behind the mystery that is the rest of the train. I few uprisings have occurred in the past and they have remained on the same talking plane as urban legends. That’s not going to last long though as we’re immediately put in the beginnings of another planned uprising, this time led by the brave and intelligent Curtis. Curtis may not have been born on the train, but he hates remembering what life was like in the beginning before his mentor changed things. That mentor is Gilliam, played by John Hurt and the evidence of his wisdom and experience is visible when you see that he has only one leg and one arm. Curtis is joined by fellow tail citizens Tanya and Edgar, played by Octavia Spencer and Jaime Bell.
The front is a mystery. We only know of its existence due to the fact that there is a small army handing out the only food available to the rear, protein blocks. The tail is also often visited by Mason, played by the woman who stole the entire movie in terms of performance, Tilda Swinton. Swinton was just incredible during the entire film. Her character of Mason, buck teeth and wide glasses, is a total reincarnation of something Terry Gilliam would think up. She is calculated and incredibly cruel. Her statement to the tail section to “be a shoe” is one of the funnier segments in the film and Swinton nails it. Between her work in this film and “Only Lovers Left Alive”, Swinton is probably my actress of the year so far.
I mentioned how funny Swinton is in this film but there is actually a lot of humor in this film. Bong Joon-Ho has always been great at blending genres in his film. Kang-ho Song has usually been the harbinger of the humor shown with his characters in “Memories of Murder” and “The Host”. The elements of humor mixed in with effects driven action and unhollywood plot twists make the films of Bong Joon-Ho a pleasure to watch and dissect and Snowpiercer is no different. As we travel through car after car, the worlds that are being built are just outstanding. Like the inhabitants of the rear, we are shocked to see what has been existing on the same train for nearly seventeen years. There seems to be no middle class as once we progress past the dangerous threats we are given view of some serious luxury. It’s not really that subtle, but you can see the symbolism that Bong Joon-Ho really doesn’t like the way the world works. By the end, the film gets a little too tongue and cheek for my liking. It got way too talky towards the end and seemed to deliver the message of society rules with a gigantic shovel. Don’t get me wrong, the ending is still one of the more unique ending twists you’ll see, but the message being shoved in my face was a little too loud for my taste. I felt it went against the smart and subtle first two thirds.
I use the word “subtle” loosely though because the action in this film is far from it. There are two set pieces in this film that were an absolute blast to watch. Let’s just say they involve a school and a fight in the dark. The school scene particularly was incredible. Allison Pill plays a schoolteacher who is constantly reminding her students of the history of the train and it’s uprisings. The way she engages her children through song and pledges had me belly laughing before it all turned into a baddass set piece. There is also a scene in which everything stops as they cross a bridge marking the new year. It’s just a riot scene after scene.
Bong Joon-Ho successfully converted his unique blend of humor and thrilling action to create the first truly great English language film from a South Korean director. The country has been pumping out fantastic films for years now and it’s awesome to see this level of critical success. I think Wook Park and Je-Woon will get opportunities to try again in the States, but they have a lot of catching up to do to reach the level that Bong Joon-Ho has reached.
4/5