Le Transperceneige (Snowpiercer)
Things can go worse or better but can’t continue anymore!
Limited and exploited resources, illegal immigration, the network of power, class conflicts, and so forth… What do all these things remind you as soon as you hear? Of course, all these problems are not new to us are not solely belong to the present system as well as probable systems we imagine through. Nevertheless, it doesn’t make any difference in the significance of problems. Indeed, we can assume it’s in inverse relation to that.
Today, we’ll be talking on one of the fittest products which had criticized excellently. That is Snowpiercer. The train that became the last chance of the whole humanity I am talking about right now.
Snowpiercer is a French graphic novel that had published for the first time in 1982. Based on the origin, it has been filmed for a myriad of times, indeed, no one knew it was going to be a hit of each decade though. Despite a wide array of work is done, I’ve never read it except short pieces taken from the novel. Therefore, I’ll be talking by considering 2013 made film and 2020 made Netflix show.
The importance of the ‘Snowpiercer’ relies on the understanding of current situations. For example, the sustainability of resources, overpopulation, thus scarcity and the systems we made up. Snowpiercer is not either just about a human-made doomsday or an inevitable end of humanity but exactly the current living conditions, thus, it has been divided from other dystopias.
Snowpiercer is a 1.001 long train that has been divided into sections up to down according to specialized facilities and residents. All residents had a place on the train to keep humanity going on, that is to say, there is a cast system where the allocation of resources has been distributed by considering the title of the sections. For example, the first section gets everything, while the second section is the high classified train workers than comes the third section runs errands, at last, comes tail. Tail residents are, so-called, unofficially hop on the train, therefore Wilford keeps them on the tail section without any resource, for example, up of the train has access to meat and various kind of food, in against, taillies (this is what they called themselves) had not been feeding for years and according to story cannibalism got so much popular among taillies then Mr. Wilford showed them his mercy and gave them protein bars which will be learned later that made from cockroaches.
“I’m a shadow of my former shadow”
Every scene we see in the Snowpiercer’s wagons contains images about Wilford’s name that could be related to the symbolism of Christianity. Also, there is a sequence in 2013 made Snowpiercer, which is directed by Bong Joon-ho, both Jesus and “W” of Wilford’s name has been together. Christianity is still popular amid taillies, whereas, uptrain doesn’t have any old-fashioned religious as far as we see. By the way, Jesus and Wilford have shown up together Gilliam who is the (ex-) leader of taillies, told “I’m a shadow of my former shadow”. There is two possible meaning relies upon the sentiment, at the end of the movie we learned that Gilliam was just a spy leader and Bong Joon-ho wanted to give a clue about the twist. On the other hand, he is the right hand of the Wilford that is being portrayed as an omnipotent messiah, and Gilliam could represent his apostle on the down of the train.
As we can see, Bong Joon-ho loves using metaphoric/allegoric images, words. Moreover, the film is not solely drawing him a poor godless-figure but reinforcing their arguments by showing doctrines of the new order as well.
“Know your place- keep your place- be a shoe!”
After numerous revolutions attempt in the tail, they persuaded they are not belonging to the tail. Indeed, they were asserting that they must be treated equally, at least, treat as a human. Another day in the tail, Mason, who represents managing director of wagons as well as a classic image of an adherent of the new religion/system, finds herself in chaos (!). After a thrown shoe Mason gives her iconic speech to the tallies and says “Know your place, keep your place, be a shoe” that is to say, every one of residents should know their placement in the train she suggests equality brings chaos and that thrown shoe, was described as a “10 size chaos”. In order to stifle the rebel, the arm of the shoe’s owner had been frozen and hammered symbolically. That hammer, therefore, wasn’t just for the owner of the shoe but for all taillies.
Like Hobbes’ Leviathan, each individual has its unique way of benefit to the system, and they should be under control from one head that makes a government firm, single state. Of course, this idea had perfectly fitted by Europe under the governance of the Catholic Church.
Her way of moving the shoe, while giving a speech is significant as much as the discourse. Since there is the same pattern of movement other scenes too, hence, Bong Joon-ho tried to show us how the moves of the train became their natural order. For instance, they have been celebrating the new year when the train complete one tour around the world. Until here, we see Wilford and the train were providing new life orders, a particular culture that has the same problems in essence. Briefly, the train represents and carries all features of imagined communities in a more concrete way. Although I told everything has changed, where the train is proof of that, old matters are still not a trivial matter. By considering holidays (see, image.1), we can say the train is a transforming phase of humanity to something else, however, the current state is not the final one.
Up until here, we’ve talked through Bong Joon-ho’s movie, meanwhile, there are some ambiguous parts of the movie that Netflix show handled very well. For example, the show had been portraying Wilford’s heritage as a political figure rather than divinizing, which refers all along the show necropolitics and necro-capitalism issues. Unlike the show, the movie has had poor visuality harness for the uptrain and sustainability of resources. Of course, Bong Joon-ho would love to describe explicitly but that wouldn’t have happened due to the limited time of the film industry.
Necrocapitalism and Necropolitics
“Necrocapitalism” and “Necropolitics” concepts are independently connected and they were centered in the governance of the Snowpiercer. Since one false top-down decision may destroy the whole (unjust) allocation of resources due to providing sustainability the train decides who’s going to live and die. In this case, taillies had forced to die. Despite it is processed in the movie, the Netflix show reveals it very well.
The thing that differs Snowpiercer from other dystopias is showing the related problems of our societies. Aren’t these problems inseparable from current conditions the system we live in? Don’t we decide who’s going to take what and die? It’s a critic of the world we made but using train metaphor instead of world and wagons instead of continents…
Selection of cast and environment
Here we will be discussing how the general population of the train is specified, means, who, whom, from where. First things first, both of them has based on westernized culture, whereas, Bong Joon-ho used that to criticize as well as focused on the corruption of westernization in some ways. In doing so, he tried to use how other nations live under the lead of the English spoken world. Another thing we need to pay attention to is the selection of Chris Evans as the lead role, as known as Captain America.
On the other hand, Netflix decided to use a colored person as the lead role as well as there are Asians and Hispanic characters, without any cultural background related. Indeed, the show has no purpose as illustrating cultural differences and inequalities, yet, we cannot blame it for this. Neither show nor movie has had the purpose to put that as a central issue.
Still, at the end of the movie Bong Joon-ho’s movie promises a non-western future to the audience. There are numerous critic and debates on what does the end of the film means. Typically, it showed us that the world heals itself without any detrimental intervention of humans.
Although I watched it as carefully as I can, I tend to focus solely on some points of the story and narrative due to the function of being multilayered. Unless you watch it over and over again, you won’t be able to see it entirely at first glance. Thus, I’d watched twice the movie and skimmed over some reviews of the show. In my opinion, all the temptations of these goods come from the first Snowpiercer idea, even though I haven’t watched it yet, I’ll recommend you (and me of course) to start with its novel.
For any kind of new approach, I’ve missed, you can put a comment below.
