Last Updated on January 24, 2021 by rob
In the near future the world has frozen and the remnants of humanity survive inside a train endlessly circumnavigating the globe. The richest live in luxury at the front, the poorest exist in squalor at the back. But one day those in the rear carriages decide to seize control.
A fascinating, stylishly executed and exciting tale with good performances across the board from an international cast that includes Chris Evans as the rebel leader, John Hurt as his sage adviser, Jamie Bell as the youngster Evans’ character feels a special responsibility for (as well he might when the horrifying backstory about these two finally emerges), South Korean star Song Kang Ho as the tech genius who can break the Snowpiercer’s security system, Ko Ah-sung as his daughter, Ed Harris as the deranged mastermind behind the train and Tilda Swinton giving a laugh out loud hilarious performance as a Yorkshire accented dictator (a sort of Mini-Me to Ed Harris’s Dr Evil) desperately trying to keep the lower orders in line with equal doses of physical brutality and patronising lectures modelled on Mrs Thatcher. She’s great.
The script is a variation on one of SF’s oldest themes – the class conflict between the Haves and the Have Nots – and in the revelation of what happens to the small children taken by force from the Have Nots there’s a clear tip of the hat to a famous scene from Lang’s Metropolis. But Snowpiercer is very much its own thing, an intensely visceral experience in which the brutality of life inside the train and the impossibility of life outside of it is vividly rendered and instantly engaging. The film evokes powerful empathy for Evans and his companions right from the off. By the time we’ve seen these characters beaten, tortured and had their children taken away we’re more than ready for the uprising, we want blood. But Bong – to his credit – has more on his mind than bloodlust.
There’s an extraordinary sense of wonderment and disorientation as the rebels passage through carriage after carriage proves increasingly ostentatious and the true nature of the Snowpiercer becomes apparent. The striking tonal shifts that are increasingly a hallmark of this director – at one point in the middle of a mass brawl an impromptu truce breaks out as both sides, even the dying, come together to celebrate the passing of the bridge which marks another year in the Snowpiercer’s circumnavigation of the globe – and the gradual realisation for both the rebels and the viewer that in this bizarre ecosystem rebellions by the lower orders are not an unwanted disruption but a Darwinian necessity, prove as fascinating as they do unsettling. After such a grim journey the glimmer of optimism Bong allows into the final scenes feels richly deserved.
