A sci-fi drama by Korean director Bong Joon-ho about a revolution in a postapocalyptic world.
After a manmade planetary catastrophe, those people left alive are stuck on a train that is endlessly circling the planet. Several thousand people live in train carriages, submitting to a strict and pitiless social order that is controlled by the military. At the end of the train, people who before the catastrophe were not rich or privileged are packed together. They are fed jelly-like protein bars made from insects and kept under control with the help of propaganda and brute force. Toward the front the train, more fortunate people have access to schools, nightclubs, and fresh food. They are confident that they deserve everything they have. At the head of the survivors is an invisible, semi-mythical businessman. A group of rebels, tired of lawlessness and violence, decides to challenge his power and the extreme inequality that he embodies.
In his first English-language film, Bong Joon-ho brought together the usual elements of a successful sci-fi action movie. He supplemented a spectacular setting and gripping narrative with star actors, casting Jamie Bell, Tilda Swinton, and Chris Evans in the lead roles. The essence of the action is very different to the usual blockbuster of this genre. Bong Joon-ho places his characters in an experimental scenario of the future, taking the features of real society—inequality, the struggle for resources, the unreal and myth-bound image of those who have power—to extremes. This experiment and its results intersect with real historical subjects, with the socialist revolutions of the twentieth century, the instigators of which aimed to change the correlation of resources and social inequality. For Marx, revolution was a locomotive, and Bong sees the revolution in the image of a train destined to travel in an endless circle, metaphorically hinting at the iron grip of capitalism, which places the desire to receive privileges above the idea of equality.
The film will be shown in English, Japanese, Korean, French, Czech, and German with Russian subtitles.
Snowpiercer
Director Bong Joon-ho
South Korea, Czechia, 2013. 126 min.
18+