Snowpiercer: The Worst Closing Image of a Movie Ever?

By Péter MARTON

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Snowpiercer is a 2013 movie directed by Bong Joon Ho of South Korea. It is relevant for EUtopias and Other Futures because it is often referred to as SF due to its premise, and because it also has key European connections and elements.

The premise is that humanity had reached a point where climate engineering had to be tried, which then badly backfired. "Backfroze" may be a better word as a new ice age was brought about. There are survivors to be found on a very long train that is powered by a perpetum mobile (perpetual motion) engine and is going eternally in circles, clearing the track ahead of snow, extracting water in the process, and so on. It functions as a near-closed ecological system.

Still from the comic (the English-language edition)...

European connections include that the film was loosely (as in real loooooosely) based on Le Transperceneige, an awesome French comic created by Jacques Lob and (after the death of Alexis, the first graphic artist to work on it) Jean-Marc Rochette; that the line-up includes many English/British actors -- for example, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton or Jamie Bell -- and that much was shot in Prague, in the Czech Republic, for it. 

I will perhaps write a proper review, eventually. I first saw the film on an airplane, during a depressingly long flight, and enjoyed it, probably because it was really entertaining distraction from the monotony and other deprivations. On the second viewing (this Friday), the weaknesses of the film seemed clearer now (even as strengths remain, too).

The story is an at times gory allegory, with interesting ideas about the interaction of social stratification, injustice, class conflict, revolution and our relationship with the environment. The problems begin not with there being no ideas, but that there are too many, in fact. This could be managed by a clever plot, but this is not such a clever plot after all, and the contradictions accumulate to the extent that no bullet train could ultimately pierce through them. But this is exactly the discussion that is for another day. For now, I just want to focus on the ending, which I found shickingly weak already upon the first viewing -- in fact, its weakness has been pointed out by others, too. On second viewing, I felt an urge to cover my eyes...

(Time for a spoiler alert, perhaps?)

Exhibit 1: There are two survivors (a teenage lady and a small boy) after the train is derailed and completely wrecked, and they find themselves alone on no man's planet.

Exhibit 2: This is what they face. End of the film.

Finally, the last exhibit: the director/screenwriter's (Joon Ho Bong's) own words about the ending.

"So, for me, it’s a very hopeful ending … But those two kids will spread the human race … I don’t really feel everyone must die. I hope there were other survivors who lived through the avalanche, I just didn’t have the means to shoot that ... But outside the train, life is actually returning. It’s nature that’s eternal, and not the train or the engine, as you see with the polar bear at the end."

Perhaps this is not really the worst ending ever. Nothing wrong, in fact, with the image in the first place: it is what is implied by it (polar bears = hope), and not what is shown here, that is the problem. As to bad movie endings in general, there is competition. Meanwhile, this film can be willingly viewed and re-viewed as just cruelly realistic (if you can bear that). But this is certainly a case where somebody should have raised a hand to comment on the director's vision, to warn him not to spoil what was otherwise a decent effort by him at making audiences think.

Given the values of the film, my reaction was a sad "Oooooh" already when I first saw that polar bear above.