George Orwell would be proud: a Snowpiercer review

Joon-ho Bong’s masterful film Snowpiercer begins with a scene of violence. Immediately, the audience is plunged in a dark world full of greed, inequality and startling displays of intense, often remorseless, violence.

It’s a dark movie and one of the most depressing visions of a post-apocalyptic world I’ve come across since marathon reading The Road. However, it is also filled with moments of beauty, hope and even—as odd as it sounds while viewing it—humor.

This is also one of many, many movies I’m lamenting over because it’s not receiving nearly as much attention as it deserves.

The story is a relatively simple one as far as post-apocalyptic tales go. It’s set in a world where a climate change experiment, CW-7, has failed and left the world a frozen, uninhabitable wasteland. The last of humanity has packed onto a train called the Snowpiercer, which travels the world in a never-ending loop.

And I guarantee you will hate this woman.

The train has descended into a Brave New World style class system. Those who ended up in the back end of the train live as barely fed, lower class citizens who are subject to torture and execution constantly. While, even before the viewer gets to see the rest of the train, it’s apparent that the well-fed, happy people at the front of the train are living as well as could be after the fall of the world.

This class system, and the frustration and behavior, that results from it is the film’s subject on the surface. However, the film is also about something much more elemental: the eternal struggle humans have over how to label one another and how to view one another.

This is a film about how very easy it is to become a dictator, to become a mass murdered and to become a monster. It’s about how easy it is to live off those below you in society and how easy it is to never, ever question this organization. George Orwell and Aldous Huxley would have loved it.

With a multi-cultural, very talented cast composed of people like Chris Evans, John Hurt, Ed Harris, Octavia Spencer, Kang-ho Song and the ever entertaining Tilda Swinton, this movie is hard to hate.

While it’s not the most original film in terms of themes, it makes up for it in sheer beauty. Many films have tackled the topic of human nature in the face of disaster, but perhaps none have done it in such a beautiful fashion. The film follows the attempts of Curtis (Chris Evans) to lead a rebellion and bring the end trainers to the front of the train, thus seizing control of the entire train.

As he makes his way to the front of the train, the audience gets to watch as he sees what the rest of the train looks like for the first time in his life. We are as ignorant as he is and as awed and appalled by what we see. As he moves from the squalor of the end of the train, we see a constant display of riches. Living trees. An aquarium. Fresh food. The wonders get more awe inspiring as he moves. And we move with him.

The cinematography is also simply astounding, especially considering 99 percent of the film takes place within the train. There are some truly beautiful shots in this film, from singular floating snowflakes to blood beading on a dead man’s brow.

With a limited score, it’s also a very simple movie in a lot of ways. It’s a simple story with a simple goal: get to the front of the train. That’s the goal of the characters and, since it’s so easy to get invested in these characters, ultimately our goal as well.

It’s a film I’m sure to watch again and I’m sure I’ll notice something new when I watch it again. It’s just one of those movies.

It’s also nearly impossible to look away from this film. From brutal scenes of violence to beautiful moments, it’s hard to stop watching. Almost like a train wreck.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Marvel Soldiers On

I’ll come right out and admit to you all that I almost didn’t write this review, not because I had nothing to say about the movie, but because I am terribly biased. You see, there is very little in the realm of current pop culture that I love more than the Marvel cinematic universe. One of my three bookshelves is filled to the brim with comic books (and graphic novels) as well as Loki, Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America figurines.

I love Marvel, damnit. I’m convinced it will take an Attack of the Killer Tomatoes level of movie badness to make me not go see a Marvel movie at least three times in theaters and then watch it obsessively once it’s out on DVD.

That being said, it can probably be agreed on that Captain America (as played by Chris Evans) has long been regarded as the risky card in Marvel’s movie deck. What could modern audiences find in the patriotic story of a good man turned soldier? How would a post-9/11, NSA wary America possibly connect with Steve Rogers?

In my internet travels, I’ve heard a lot of discussion about how Steve Rogers is the character everyone loves to mock. To many, he’s too patriotic. He’s a goody two shoes. He’s oblivious. He’s probably the most divisive character in Marvel’s cinematic universe right now.

Plus, the new uniform is pretty badass.

However, I’ve also seen many, many eloquent defenders of the character. Many of them explain in far more brilliant ways than I can how Steve Rogers is exactly the kind of character we need right now.

I’ve often thought that my generation is a generation of pessimism. I know that the people around me that are my age certainly are and rightly so. We’re a generation faced with massive unemployment, a world that didn’t grow up on the internet like we did and a world that’s rapidly changing. It’s confusing and it’s made for a lot of bitter young people, many of whom really don’t believe in the idea of a hero anymore.

The media exposes all and nobody is really safe from scrutiny. Thus, people are just people and it’s hard to believe in a person anymore.

That being said, I believe in Steve Rogers and—judging by what I’ve heard from other fans online—so do a lot of other people.

The latest Marvel installment, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, goes a long way toward fleshing his character out. While he’s definitely still the ass-kicking, patriotic Captain America we saw in Captain America and The Avengers, he’s grown and the movie makes an effort to show that.

This Steve Rogers is slowly finding a place to stand in the modern world and is slowly trying to figure out what it means to be a legend in his own lifetime.

One of the many brilliant aspects of the way in which Marvel Studios has handled the production of its movies is that they have the ability to make characters grow from film to film. They can and do take the time to let the characters change and to show the viewer different aspects of them.

Confronted with betrayal on two fronts and the intrusion of an old friend (now enemy) into his life, this film shows Cap’s struggle to bring together both sides of his personality: Captain America and Steve Rogers. It shows his struggle and growth toward reconciling the fact that he is a hero and the fact that he’s lost everything and is, after all, only human.

We see the addition of a new friend and ally (Sam Wilson as played by Anthony Mackie) and we see the development of The Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Captain America’s friendship.

The movie is simultaneously entertaining and stressful. It’s a tense film at times, to be sure. However, it also pits Captain America against both his future and his past and enemies old and new.

Most importantly, it breaks down quite a few of the stereotypes both fans and detractors have put onto this character. We see a Steve who is trying to fit into the new world rather successfully, who is ready and willing to question the government and SHIELD and who is most certainly not just a soldier following orders. This character, on film at least, has never just been a patriotic dunce and this movie makes that abundantly clear to anyone who hadn’t realized that in the first place.