Wednesday 21 January 2015

Snowpiercer (2013)

"We control the engine, we control the world. All past revolutions have failed because we couldn't take the engine"

A film about revolution, its cost and above all how we must never allow ourselves to be in the position where revolt is the only option left. Unfortunately, it seems the world is heading further in that direction with each coming day. Fight for your rights now and don't let government and corporations gradually remove or dilute them until we have only one option left. Do not accept the status quo. The workers are the engine.

Snowpiercer has some beautifully and imaginatively filmed action sequences that have just enough "shaky-cam" to add momentum, vital in this film as everything is above forward movement. The middle-eight is well placed allowing us to reflect on the frenetic first half of the film and anticipate the second.

The cast; Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell (supplying much needed, but light, comic relief that actually works for once), the beautiful Kang-ho Song, Octavia Spencer, Ah-sung Ko are all outstanding. Shit the entire cast are great. But special credit must go to Swinton who creates a sycophantic monster with echoes of Margaret Thatcher, Mary Whitehouse and Vivienne Westwood (Westwood's always been distastefully enamoured with the nobility and the rich), and if one line sums up this film it's Tilda Swinton's character crying "it's not me!". It's never me. It's never my fault. Someone else made me do it.

SNowpiercer also carries sub-themes of innocence and how we must protect it from corruption, the use of narcotics and religion in the subjugation of the masses, and how hate, power and revenge can blind and corrupt.

A great film that I know I'll come back to time and time again.

As a parting note, Oxfam recently reported that the wealthiest one per cent possesses about half of the world’s wealth. It looks like we're already on the train.

Original letterboxd review

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