An Evaluation of Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer

这是一篇电影Snowpiercer的影评。整个列车，象征着人类社会。而那一节节车厢，从尾到头，代表着人类社会中不同的阶层。故事不断地向观众强调一种平衡的观念。影片的可贵之处，正是揭示了实现人类持续繁衍的生态平衡与人类自由发展之间的永恒矛盾！

Part I
  When the world comes to an end, where can the survivors go on with their living? The sci-fi epic film Snowpiercer presents the audience a fantasy about one magnificent monorail train with perpetual drive where all survivors continue their live as community members in the new Ice Age after failed global-warming-controlling experiments. Directed by the Korean director Bong Joon-ho, the film is certified as fresh by the website “rotten tomatoes” despite its frequently discussed topic of class confrontation.

  Ty Burr, a film reviewer from Boston Global, compliments this Korean moviemaker in his review ‘Snowpiercer’: Train in vain, writing that Bong “ascends to the master level of commercial filmmaking” (1). Instead of focusing on the technique used in the movie, which is a common topic for review, Ty Burr finds a novel entry point. To wit, instead of dealing with how the sound effect, lightning, camera shot affect the way audience feel about the movie, Burr emphasizes on the representation of social relations in his review. With the utilization of pop Marxism, he analyzes the epitome of nowadays society represented on that monorail, with the wealthy people living in the front compartment where the living is extremely comfortable and the poor people stuck in the back which is basically a living hell for them. However, under the circumstance, people from the back develop an almost unbreakable relationship like a family. By analyzing the film from a cultural instead of professional perspective, Ty Burr speak highly of the movie, saying that “on the level of a popcorn thrill ride, “Snowpiercer” is a beaut” (1) and rating it with 4.5 stars. Although the review does not comment on any professional technique used in the movie, which is a possible implication that the target readers of the review are not professional people but populace who are just watching the movie for fun, a beaut even just “on the level of a popcorn thrill ride” means a huge approval of this Asian-directed movie with Hollywood characteristics.

Part II
  Adopted from the namesake graphic novel in 1986, the movie Snowpiercer tells a story about revolt. The story begins in the year 2031, 17 years after the failed attempt by governments to control global-warming which in reverse caused the earth back to Ice Age. All the survivors boarded on the Snowpiercer, a monorail with perpetual-motion engine produced by Wilford, the transportation magnate. Like many Hollywood movies, Snowpiercer centers itself around how people from back compartment, after 17 years of suppressed living, successfully revolt against the wealthy upper class under the direction of the leading character, Curtis.

  With environmental problems emerging like mushrooms after rain, the concerns about the worsening relationship between human and nature are more and more represented in the movies, such as 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, etc.. The Korean moviemaker Bong Joon-ho presents to the audience his Noah in a train’s shape, on which the human natures are represented incisively and vividly: selfishness and devotion, nobility and baseness, interests first and humanity first. Those human natures are embodied in two symbols: train, and children.

Train: a saver or a trapper?
  Snowpiercer provides both the macro-context and micro-context, with the former being snow and the latter piercer (train). The two contexts supplement and contradict each other: the train exists because of the snow but when the snow or the piercer experiences a change, the other part respectively changes. Therefore, to keep everything as it is, it is of great importance to make sure both parts operate normally, to wit, to reach the state of balance, as it is said in the movie. The train serves as a critical role in the movie, the place where confrontation begins and the main battlefield of the revolt. Following Curtis’ pace of revolt, people from back compartment go through the last compartment to the first-class compartment and finally to the engine. The path of lower-class, middle-class, upper-class and finally the governors makes Snowpiercer Babel.

  However, the train, which is supposed to be a saver, turns out to be a trapper to which people aboard are the slaves. Gradually, the piercer transcends from the role of serving to the role of being served. Ironically, when the governor is about to retire, he demands his successor to follow the lead of the machine, to serve it, to be loyal to it, and to respect it. This act arises the question: what kind of role does the Snowpiercer play in the movie and what role the human being?

Children: Trigger and Hope
  Children are always considered as innocent, harmless and hopeful. That is the reason why people always try their best to rescue them whether in fire, earthquake or other catastrophe. In the movie, the children serve more than the symbol of hope, but a trigger. When the upper-class takes the child away, the act trigs the revolt of his parents, further the whole process. And when the revolution group see the brainwash education in the kindergarten of front compartment, it arises another climax of the movie. And in the final scene when Curtis is about to worship the engine, it is the children that bring back his self-ego and make him determine his scarification. Therefore, the children in the movie not only represent the existence of hope but accelerate the development of the plot.

  As a disaster film which reflects humanity, Snowpiercer is not the first one. As others, the path, which those revolters go through as well as the whole train go through, is a path of exploration, recurrence and salvation. The final act, where humanity conquers authority, represents the hope that human beings will eventually conquer the darkest hour before the dawn and embrace the bright future.

Part III
  The reason why I choose this movie is, as said previously, after the emergence of the movie 2012, such type of film grows like the mushroom after the rain because such movie serves as a precaution that we human beings should protect the environment and at the same time provides us some hope. Here in the movie Snowpiercer, although the topic is relatively a common one, Bong’s idea of comparing Noah as a train on which the concept of class still exists. This point is comparatively novel.

  And the reason why I analyze Ty Burr’s review and make my own review of similar tone is that I assume my target reader would be young, fresh students or working people who are not seeking a career in movie-related area. In a short sentence, my target readers are unprofessional. They do not care to know so exactly about how the movie is shot; instead, they care more about what the movie can bring to them, to wit, the implication. Therefore, my focus of the review is the cultural implication of the movie.