Snowpiercer

Where to begin? Well, I guess I’ll start by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I’ll openly admit that I’m a sucker for post-apocalyptic settings, but I’m pleased to say that this film was most unlike anything I’ve seen before.

The standout character for me was Minister Mason. Although I thought the actress seemed awfully familiar, I didn’t realise it was Tilda Swinton. I was definitely thrown by the make-up/prosthetics/Yorkshire accent. I found her performance captivating and I was very interested to read that her inspiration for the character was a mixture of Margaret Thatcher, Colonel Gaddafi, Adolf Hitler and Silvio Berlusconi.

There were too many great scenes to talk about, but my absolute favourite was the classroom car. Here you see how the rich kids are being indoctrinated using propaganda videos and catchy songs from an early age. Out of nowhere the carriage erupts into a bloodbath, when the seemingly harmless and heavily pregnant primary school teacher suddenly starts mowing people down with a submachine gun, before being slain by a perfectly flung throwing knife to the jugular. Gilliam (John Hurt) gets captured and executed by Biff from Back to the Future, which in turn causes Curtis to kill Minister Mason in retaliation. This entire 8 minute or so section of the film is absolute perfection.

There’s loads of great little funny moments in the film. For example I found it absolutely hilarious when everyone stops fighting to observe a 10 second countdown to the New year, before recommencing their bloody battle to the death. This was easily my favourite moment of the entire film. But there are many more subtle moments that could be easily missed… such as the guy with night vision walking right through the middle of the axe battle in the dark, using the clicker to count the dead – or Tanya cracking one of her hard boiled eggs on the head of the bratty schoolgirl.

I couldn’t decide what to make of the part with the fish that Bong was so desperate to keep it in the final cut. At the risk of agreeing with a convicted sexual predator, I just wasn’t sure what the significance of the fish was. But having known about Bong’s deception with Weinstein, the scene gave me certain kind of satisfaction nonetheless.

I thought that the protein blocks were going to turn out to be derived from human flesh, but the truth was arguably just as bad, if not worse. I think that if the passengers at the back of the train had known what was actually in the blocks, they would have chosen to return to cannibalism and I, for one, would not have judged them for it.

The man behind the curtain almost always comes as a disappointment and this is no different when Curtis finally gets to meet Mr Wilford in the engine car, who is little more than an old man in a dressing gown. Initially I found the ending to be a little underwhelming but having thought about it for a couple of days I think it was quite a fitting end.

When trying to search for this film on Netflix, I stumbled across an upcoming TV series adaptation of Snowpiercer Starring Jennifer Connelly. It is sure to be a disappointment when compared with this masterpiece of a film, but it has already been renewed for a second series so somebody must be confident in the show’s success. However, I am definitely intrigued to see what they come up with – so perhaps I’ll try to reserve judgement for now.

Without delving in deep to the political and sociological analogies that this film is trying to portray, it was really interesting to see the rebels experience each section of the train: from the familiar poverty and squalor of the back to the unfamiliar decadence and debauchery at the front – and every random carriage and event in between. Even the stark contrast of mood and colours between individual adjacent carriages is quite striking.

In summary, Snowpiercer is a brilliantly bizarre dystopian vision of the future with superb cinematography. So it is.

4.5 stars out of 5