Yes, I've seen it (twice) and all kinds of thoughts come to mind, I can only scratch the surface here. Firstly, the logical inconsistencies aka, suspension of belief or, if you like, artistic license? Lord of the Flies also comes to mind. Capitalism as the War on Nature; Malthus too, ruthless in tooth and claw. The ideology of capitalism I think is central to the story, man as machine that is, the slave children, the factory, the assembly line, the train as an allegory of the madness of capitalism:
"Life is but a motion of limbs…. For what is the heart, but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body." - Hobbes Leviathon
Also the expediency of capitalism, after all, the train is the distillation of the class war isn't it. Curtis ends up as the 'liberal' that permits, justifies, rationalises, Israeli genocide. I suppose ultimately, Snow Piercer illustrates the arrogance, the hubris of the capitalist, rooted as it is, in the Victorian ideology of a War on Nature but as you observe, we are actually a part of Nature, not above it. A flawed movie but a brave one, I think marred by an absurd plot, that fails to obey Stanislaw Lem's 'rule' of the novel, that it be internally consistent and obey its own logic, no matter how crazy it is to the 'outside' observer. I think it illustrates why 'science fiction' is the only relevant literary art form of the 20th-21st century. We're done with description.
Hi, William! Yes, I agree with all of this, and I think it's totally fair to consider the film as a massive allegory on the perniciousness of capitalism. The Hobbes quotation is definitely a nice way of opening up the idea of the train *as* Leviathan. Really appreciate that! Thank you. I hear you on sci-fi as a hugely important art form now, too. An interesting question, too, is where to draw the line between that genre and horror...for me, horror is the primo genre for the 20th-21st century, often particularly when it edges over into science fiction...well, now you've made me want to go reread Octavia Butler!
Well of course, remember the magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, I think I still have a few copies amongst my massive library of Sci-fi paperbacks and of course the roots lie with Mary Shelley, don't they. And why did it take a woman to write Frankenstein in the age of Victorian super misogyny? I first read Butler as a teenager before I fully appreciated her writing. When I first viewed Snow Piercer, I thought it was Russian (I'm really big fan of Tarkovsky and of course, Solaris is based on Stanislaw Lem's novel of the same name). Horror treads the same path as sci-fi and fantasy, doesn't it, hence the overlap but I think horror has been bastardised by Hollywood, trivialised, I mean look at Shelley's Frankenstein!!! Everything truly creative that capitalism touches gets turned into shit. I mean what could be more horrific than Gaza? For some it's even entertainment. So yes, we're living in the Age of Horror and maybe that's why the genre has been trivialised, it's just too close to home.
Yes, I've seen it (twice) and all kinds of thoughts come to mind, I can only scratch the surface here. Firstly, the logical inconsistencies aka, suspension of belief or, if you like, artistic license? Lord of the Flies also comes to mind. Capitalism as the War on Nature; Malthus too, ruthless in tooth and claw. The ideology of capitalism I think is central to the story, man as machine that is, the slave children, the factory, the assembly line, the train as an allegory of the madness of capitalism:
"Life is but a motion of limbs…. For what is the heart, but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body." - Hobbes Leviathon
Also the expediency of capitalism, after all, the train is the distillation of the class war isn't it. Curtis ends up as the 'liberal' that permits, justifies, rationalises, Israeli genocide. I suppose ultimately, Snow Piercer illustrates the arrogance, the hubris of the capitalist, rooted as it is, in the Victorian ideology of a War on Nature but as you observe, we are actually a part of Nature, not above it. A flawed movie but a brave one, I think marred by an absurd plot, that fails to obey Stanislaw Lem's 'rule' of the novel, that it be internally consistent and obey its own logic, no matter how crazy it is to the 'outside' observer. I think it illustrates why 'science fiction' is the only relevant literary art form of the 20th-21st century. We're done with description.
Hi, William! Yes, I agree with all of this, and I think it's totally fair to consider the film as a massive allegory on the perniciousness of capitalism. The Hobbes quotation is definitely a nice way of opening up the idea of the train *as* Leviathan. Really appreciate that! Thank you. I hear you on sci-fi as a hugely important art form now, too. An interesting question, too, is where to draw the line between that genre and horror...for me, horror is the primo genre for the 20th-21st century, often particularly when it edges over into science fiction...well, now you've made me want to go reread Octavia Butler!
Well of course, remember the magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, I think I still have a few copies amongst my massive library of Sci-fi paperbacks and of course the roots lie with Mary Shelley, don't they. And why did it take a woman to write Frankenstein in the age of Victorian super misogyny? I first read Butler as a teenager before I fully appreciated her writing. When I first viewed Snow Piercer, I thought it was Russian (I'm really big fan of Tarkovsky and of course, Solaris is based on Stanislaw Lem's novel of the same name). Horror treads the same path as sci-fi and fantasy, doesn't it, hence the overlap but I think horror has been bastardised by Hollywood, trivialised, I mean look at Shelley's Frankenstein!!! Everything truly creative that capitalism touches gets turned into shit. I mean what could be more horrific than Gaza? For some it's even entertainment. So yes, we're living in the Age of Horror and maybe that's why the genre has been trivialised, it's just too close to home.