Ms. Hen reviews SNOWPIERCER

SNOWPIERCER

Directed by Bong Joon-Hu

2014

Ms. Hen doesn’t watch many science fiction films, but she enjoys them. The reason is she finds most sci-fi films formula and Hollywood, and that is not Ms. Hen’s style. She happened to find out about SNOWPIERCER from a preview, and she thought she would be interested, and she was not disappointed.

SNOWPIERCER is about a post-apocalyptic world in which everyone left is travelling on a train hurtling around the planet. We are introduced to the train at the tail section, known as economy class, where the poorest passengers live. The people start to fight to get to the front of the train to find Timmy, a boy who is taken away. They also want to see what’s there, and to find more food than the protein bars they are given to eat. Curtis, and the other men decide that the guns the guards hold don’t have any bullets, and decide to overthrow them and start their way up the train.

Curtis and the other revolutionaries employ Namgoon, a prisoner who is known to be a security expert, and they pay him with Kronole, a drug that is he and the other first class passengers are all addicted to. His daughter is psychic, and also addicted to Kronole. She sees what is beyond the doors before they are opened.

The group walks through the section where insects are ground to make the food for the tail passengers, and a schoolroom in which a teacher is giving a lesson about the Frozen Seven, a group of people who tried to escape the train. They also walk through an aquarium full of fish, which serves sushi twice a year, which happens to be that day, and a nightclub, and many other odd places.

Tilda Swinton gives a stellar performance as Mason the Minister. She’s reminiscent of Effie Trinket in THE HUNGER GAMES, but much creepier in Tilda Swinton-fashion. Ed Harris appears as Wilson the train conductor. Ms. Hen didn’t know at first if it actually was Ed Harris, because he didn’t sound the same as usual.

Ms. Hen was reminded of George Orwell’s ANIMAL FARM watching this film. There is a hierarchy, which cannot be challenged, and the people in the tail want to rebel against the people at the front. The tail people are fed insects, and are left to eat each other and babies in the beginning of the excursion, and they hate that their lives are like this, even though they survived the apocalypse, they don’t know if they prefer to be alive. Children born on the train, under seventeen years old, are called “train babies,” and know nothing of the world outside the train.

At the beginning of the film, the tail people were handed their protein bars, but before, they were asked what they wanted, and they all screamed, “Chickens!” Ms. Hen was impressed that the people wanted chickens, but she was not surprised since she believes chickens are superior. Also, one of the areas of the train was a meat locker full of chickens, which looked disgusting, but the characters all appeared anxious and apprehensive at the sight.

Ms. Hen enjoyed this film because it brought her to another place. It is a train ride on the end of the world, and humanity still has to learn to coexist, the fighting and insurgencies never seem to stop, the train speed goes of control, but the passengers know that they are all of humanity left on the planet together, which is a frightening thought, but one that is their reality. Ms. Hen thinks this is an important film, which she cannot say for everything she watches or reads. It's important because it shows how twisted society can get, and displays how the world should not succumb to itself.