July
21
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Snowpiercer – WTF? (Film Review)
It has taken me more than a month to write my Snowpiercer review. It’s one of those moments where I can’t tell if it’s the film or me. It unapologetically taps into a cult film aesthetic, but it works so damn hard to tap into a cult film aesthetic, that it calls forth an internal resistance that makes me want to toss it aside with full force. Yet, certain elements – its perverse stupidity, Tilda Swinton’s teeth, Alison Pills awesome one-act domination, John Hurts double-edged nice guy against Ed Harris, its refusal to adhere to traditional story line elements – work so well, it almost saves the Boog Joon-ho’s first English language effort from white washing itself in try-hard. It’s a deeply silly film, made without any effort at seriousness, and this is probably where its salvation lies, because even as a cult film, it doesn’t take itself too seriously.
I found the first thirty minutes were the most tiresome, with a ludicrous premise that takes a third of the film to get over. The on board story is far more interesting than the idea of the dregs of humanity speeding around the frozen planet in a train. Snowpercier does have some brains, which means if you can get over the idea that with only about three hundred and fifty people left alive in the entire world, the first thing they needed to do is separate rich from poor with violence, which is too stupid an idea with such a small central population, to deal with, then the film does get into a groove that is entertaining and reaches it’s own conclusions that go a long way in justifying the whole silly thing. If you can get past the first third, you will probably end up having a better time than expected. Snowpiercer is based on a 1980’s French Graphic novel, Le Transperceneige, and is made by Bong Joon-ho, who had great success with The Host, so my assumptions that it all might be over my head are probably accurate. What is great to see is a sci-fi blockbuster made with indie/art house feel and budget, so aside from its oddities, there is enough about it to excite the non-target audience, and regular cinema goer who maybe want to see what all the fuss is about.
Chris “Captain America” Evans (who gave me temporary narcolepsy as the titular super hero) is Curtis, a passenger on The Snowpiercer, a super train built by Wilford (Ed Harris) to keep the very small remaining population rocketing around the earth in order to stay warm enough to survive a global freeze that was a science experiments in combating global warming gone wrong. (That concept was rather funny) The Snowpiercer is propelled by a perpetual motion machine, run and maintained at the front of the train by Wilford himself. The train is divided into a financially based class system, with the “have’s” at the front and the “have not’s” trapped in a overcroweded final carriage, forced to eat gel like bricks made of bugs. Why this divide has been imposed is never explained, which does give the film some brains, tapping into socialist theory that the deprived poor need to exist so that wealth can have value. How do you know you are rich if there are no poor to envy you? It is within the detail of the running of the train, the obvious sub plot of the have not’s wanting to take that which they envy that the silly details come in to strip the plot of any attempt at viability, but one must concede any pretensions to viability were always very thin indeed. The film crams in so many ideas, the bulk of which are so odd ball and weird, without follow through (a man loses an arm in rather horrific circumstances purely so that we can see a man lose an arm in rather horrific circumstances) it becomes a montage of imagination rather than some attempt at central theme driven message. Appreciated on that level, for what it appears to be in the purely visual sense, it essentially becomes a masterpiece. One can almost hear Bong Joon-ho saying I had this awesome dream and I turned it into a film.
Curtis (Chris Evans) is thirty-four and been on the train since he was a child, and he’s getting itchy for something other than those gel bricks. There’s a vague “chosen one” message around him, but eventually enough horrible things happen to jolt him into action, which is encouraged by John Hurt whose comments are so abstruse he may as well be one of the people speaking Korean. A mutiny on the Snowpiercer ensues and the rebels fight and slaughter their way to the front of the train, only to be confronted with how Wilford is using the children he’s been stealing from the poor.
The films strengths are in the perverse pleasures it takes in its certain little in-jokes: A very Korean film headlined by Captain America, Tilda Swinton with appalling teeth happens to be very British and a parody of Margaret Thatcher, which in its own way is having a bit of a go at Meryl Streep, the amazing production design by Ondřej Nekvasil which is its own special brand of awesomeness, Ninja style warriors wearing hoods that reference a Lady Gaga video and so on. The film settles in on Song Kang-ho as Namgoong Minsu and Go Ah-sung as Yona, familiar faces from The Host, but it loses some of its campiness, and swerves a little too much toward a semi-seriousness that teeters on the edge of a problem. It’s agitprop left-wing message is so hyper-realised it becomes an anti-message, which is its own message, and that little trail carries a lot of rewards in Snowpiercer if you’re willing to follow the Cheshire Cat’s smile down that hole. It does seem to be overtly political, but it so distorts the passions of the “right” and the passions of the “left” that we’re left in a muddle of a free-for-all that can be read as a refusal of political establishments, which is another little piece of awesome.
So there you have it. Snowpiercer is the kind of film that makes me very happy I don’t have a rating system on my blog. I can’t even tell if I liked it or not.
So from reading this, I come away with the very strong impression you have completely & utterly missed the entire (& not even subtle) point to the whole entire film. The whole point of the film is a critique on class warfare and inequality that clearly exists today and has thus continued to exist in this fictional world but condensed into a much more restrictive environment. It’s not a case of “the rich wouldn’t understand they’re rich if not for the poor” it’s a case of the rich would not have the luxuries of sushi twice a year or decent healthcare, nightclub experiences, the luxuries of life because in such a small environment with extremely limited resources, it would all be chewed up & spat out almost instantaneously if accessible to all. Even the point of keeping the poor at all is simply to keep as much of the human race alive as is possible with again, these extremely limited resources while some people are still allowed to enjoy life to some degree.
Clearly this film is not for your demographic or movie viewing preferences which was made the clearer with this comment “The films strengths are in the perverse pleasures it takes in its certain little in-jokes: A very Korean film headlined by Captain America, Tilda Swinton with appalling teeth happens to be very British and a parody of Margaret Thatcher, which in its own way is having a bit of a go at Meryl Streep, the amazing production design by Ondřej Nekvasil which is its own special brand of awesomeness, Ninja style warriors wearing hoods that reference a Lady Gaga video and so on.”
This screams to me you’re a person that likes movies that are more straightforward & explained step by step (even though at the end this film is to a degree) and that’s perfectly fine, different strokes for different folks. But so much of your review clearly says that you just didn’t understand nor recognise what so many others did. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to offend you, clearly we both saw & took away two completely different things from this film, it’s just a shame you missed so much of what this film actually has to offer.
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Not at all offended!
Thanks for your comment Imriel.
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Lisa,
I think your review is as precise, thoughtful, and detailed as it could possibly be, especially the way you top it all off: “I can’t even tell if I liked it or not.” I felt exactly the same way. I was nauseated, post-watch, to find the acclaim this film received, as its brutal garbledness even got in the way of how silly it might be. The endlessly interpenetrating referentiality smacked of what you term “try-hard,” and I’m strongly considering writing, defending, and promoting a Ph.D. thesis entitled “How I’m the only person in the Fucking world who isn’t out of his mind and, commensurate with that, finds the film Snowpiercer a horrible, unwatchable mess.” I thought I’d had a stroke when I saw the Metacritic score. I’m also considering physically clipping all power cables in my home to prevent nasty electrons from bringing more “civilization” into my life, if this film is in any way emblematic of the cinema-intellectual discourse currently sloshing through the webs.
Tartly–but with great appreciation for your review,
A person who spent altogether too much time looking for a sensible review of this movie
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Also, Imriel, you’re a horrible writer, can’t recognize incisive wit and perception, and have invested far too much of your personality and undergirding personal philosophy with this, at best, wildly mediocre movie.
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Hi Magner – thanks for a fantastic comment.
When I received a notification saying someone had commented on my Snowpiercer review I instantly thought “oh no!”
But I was pleasantly surprised to find a kindred spirit.
I’m right there with you, particularly in your universal condemnation of critical analysis that I fear, extends far beyond this film, but is exemplified by it none the less.
It’s the reason I started to write my own reviews.
You are welcome any time – thanks for making me laugh so.
Lisa
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Spot on, worst film seen in a long time. Utterly patronising, boring and beyond silly.
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TLDR: Film tries to be Brazil. Film fails pathetically.
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EDIT: Go watch Brazil instead guys. It’s actually somewhat worthwhile.
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I know I am kind of late, but recently (after I praised The Platform), multiple people recommended “Snowpiercer.” I checked it out, and seeing as how critics loved it, I gave it a watch.
And damn, am I convinced that people will think anything that pretends to be smart IS smart. Found your review easily because not many people agree it’s a bad movie.
Snowpiercer is an exceedingly silly action film that presumes ingenuity on the basis of an overdone theme (class struggle), a great cast (Tilda Swinton. Octavia Spenser, Ed Harris), and dumb sentimentality which is supposed to make us feel sad when the characters die but. . . it doesn’t? There’s hardly any characterization, Chris Evans narrating his tragic backstory is almost laughable, and the movie is riddled with plotholes.
There are plot twists for the sake of plot twists, plotlines you can tell when you’re 10 minutes into the movie – such as SPOILER ALERT – I knew the secret “messages” were being sent by the op management or something, there are people waking up after apparently dying (why was that man chasing the Asian girl in particular anyway?), and a goddamned ridiculous resolution which makes absolutely no sense other than being an attempt to make the audience think ooooooh damn we didn’t think of thaaaaat, how cleveeeeer.
To boot it off, there is not one single epigrammatic quote from the movie – including the pseudo-intellectual balderdash (SPOLIER) about controlling population by way of revolution at the end.
But of course, there were sOciOpOLiTiCaL messages in the movie and it had to be praised, regardless of the merit it holds.
I know people will tell me I didn’t understand the “metaphors” but there is no attempt at subtlety in the movie. I like movies with messages—but if the message is all a film’s got going for itself, and if its plot and premise are ludicrous—with no attempt at making them believable—then it’s just a message, and not a movie. It’s beautifully directed and shot, but what a waste.
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For all of your basic rheroric I gained nothing from your review that I hadn’t already gained from the film myself. Bravo on your basic attempt to open the window for lesser minds. Keep practicing.
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