On
the surface bong Joon hos
Snowpiercer is quite literally a linear story after a mass extinction event leaving the world in
Uninhabitable cold the last fraction of humanity survives on an ark like train that will travel around the world
It is supposed
eternal the film chronicles the attempt of the impoverished members of the trains tail section as they try to
Overtake the godlike captain at the very front Wilford as the tail section Warriors led
militarily by Chris Evans as Curtis and spiritually by John Hurt as Gilliam make their way through
Successive compartments of the train were treated to a sort of live-action
flowchart of the class system in a hierarchical Society
It's quite obvious that snowpiercer is an allegory of class culture and how tensions innate within it lead to
Resentment and eventually revolution some have criticized the film for being so transparent in this respect
but the genius in director bong Joon hos art how sci-fi action film is not in the message as
Such but how through the tools and techniques of filmmaking. He conveys it for example, it's
understandable
symbolically why the tail section of the Train might not have any windows for passengers of that section the Train is
literally the world
In the whole wide just as the lower classes in society are forced to be concerned almost
exclusively with survival living at the whims of
ideologies invented by those of higher cultural standings show a taste
but as Curtis and his van reach the front of the train toward the end of the film we noticed that those sections are also
devoid of windows in sauna cars and rave cars and drug cars the affluent members of the upper class are
just as encouraged as their counterparts to consider the Train as the
Entirety of what there is even in the sacred engine room where ed harris as Wilfred maintains the life-giving machine
He created there's an almost
claustrophobic feeling a feeling of only being able to see in the direction of the linear trains linear path the trainers who world
dream in the whole wide range of
Lzz famously said it's much easier to imagine the end of all life on earth
Then a much more modest radical change in capitalism
This philosophy is central to snowpiercer
the first time the tail section looks laterally out of the window, their response is
As Gilliam attest these people can't see anything
Outside of the Train but death their focus is either forward or backward and all throughout the film
We see Kurtis making choices that force him to look in either of these two directions filmed by joon-ho in beautiful profile
We go forward small side note the YouTube channel every frame a painting
Examined Joon hos artistic use of the profile shot from another of his films mother
Which is great and I'll leave a link for in the description the front and tail sections are similar in
Another way in color scheme both are muted in the back
It's a mix of greens and blues in the engine room
a kind of off-white predominates a spoiled white symbolizing the false redemption of
Curtis's revolution and indeed as the film bears out. His revolution doesn't represent
salvation for the sufferers of the train as he himself realizes when Wilford names him as the successor Curtis was only
perpetuating the system
he sought to bring down like so many revolutions in the real world Curtis and Gilliam's Revolution was in fact an
essential part of the exploited of system
Joon-ho understands this visually he's trying to direct our attention
to another part of the train and another pair of
Protagonists it's the middle section where windows outfit every car
It's the middle section where a muted colors explode into the full spectrum and it's two passengers from the middle section
namgoong and his daughter Jana who eventually make the choice to derail the train and escape into a world all others see as
frozen and dead as Curtis fights his way forward namgoong is repeated leaking with what's
Outside the train making sure his daughter sees that too in this scene. He explains to her. What dirt is that?
He used to walk with it under his feet
Zeona is a train baby, which means that she's never known any world
But the Train her father educates and protects her from the violence that defines the hierarchical struggle. He wants her to escape
By far the most symbolically rich scene of the film and the one I think joon-ho is loudly
Signalling as the most important by his use of a full rainbow of color is the car in which the middle-class
excuse me, the middle of the Train children are
quote-unquote
educated of course like the front and the back the middle of the Train is meant to represent the middle class of
Something close to but not exactly akin to contemporary capitalist society educated enough to think for themselves yet
comfortable enough to be highly susceptible to propaganda the middle class is at once the most
Important and the most dangerous cross section of society and the school is the place where the middle class is
indoctrinated into a system that will exploit them and those less fortunate where
Ideology is most powerful indeed
this is how the members of the middle class become the tail sections faceless oppressors all at the bidding of those who languish in
hedonism and power earlier in the film Curtis figures out that the blunt tools of those oppressors their guns are
Devoid of bullets yet when he gets to the school
Joon-ho shows us where the invisible but real violence in this society lies and in a great
foreshadowing of the futility of curtis's quest the guns are hidden underneath eggs death in
false birth here again namgoong instruct Sione to look outside as the children are
indoctrinated into their propaganda
He gives her a true education which eventually comes to fruition in a true lateral escape from their linear
A story we like Yona are all of us trained babies born into a system
That seems as immutable as the earth in snowpiercer bong
Joon-ho gives us a poetic glimpse into how this system works and as he shows in the film
sometimes the best historian
Is the artist
You