Picking an angle for a piece on Snowpiercer is extremely difficult. You can focus on the train angle and make parallels between the plot and the momentum of the titular choo-choo. Or you can go the video game route and discuss how each car is like a different level. There’s also the political angle, the “tightly balanced, ecological system” angle and the battle over final cut angle. All of these are perfectly fertile topics for discussion that I would love to eventually read in-depth pieces on, but what caught my attention the most was how in the era of Michael Bay, Bong Joon-Ho opted to hew closer to the aesthetics of a very different era of blockbuster.
Though I have not seen Transformers: Age of Extinction, the overwhelming critical consensus seems to be that the action sequences are long, loud special effects orgies where it is difficult to distinguish one character from another. So of course this translated into a bajillion dollars at the box office. But things weren't always this way. Back in 1972, Francis Ford Coppola was able to break box office records with a leisurely paced and sumptuously photographed crime drama called The Godfather.
Now while I’m sure that there is a healthy number of people out there that appreciate The Godfather for what it has to say about America, the immigrant experience and capitalism, I’d be lying to myself if I didn't cop to the fact that most people saw this film for the sensationalistic stuff like the horse’s head and Moe Green’s eye. That’s just the nature of the beast. But what is it that makes these violent moments different? Why are these kills able to wedge themselves so deeply in our minds while stuff like Transformers, The Lone Ranger and World War Z simply go in one ear and come out the other?
On the audio commentary tracks to The Godfather Part I and II, Coppola discusses the unique way in which he approached the film’s violent scenes:
“The trick with violence in a film like this is that you have to try to make every moment be in some way eccentric or have some unusual, memorable aspect so it’s not just a bludgeoning or just violence but there’s some kind of context that singles it out…We’re always trying to figure out how to make these violent scenes memorable or interesting or to just give it a detail that is a little different that somehow makes what it’s really about (which is somebody murdering somebody) just a little more poetic I guess, or memorable in some way.”
I’m not certain if Bong Joon-Ho has ever listened to either of these commentary tracks, but having now experienced the action set-pieces in Snowpiercer, I am absolutely certain that this sort of cinematic thinking is thoroughly ingrained in his DNA. Each battle is completely unique, memorable and able to stand apart from the ones before and after. When I think back on my experience watching this film, a lot comes to mind, but the bits that stick out the most are little things like fish, eggs, a subtly placed Al Bowlly cue and of course the most unexpected New Year's celebration ever. These weird little touches are what fuel the, “sacred engine” and give this film life. This is the stuff that makes me certain Snowpiercer will be able to live on beyond the standard summer movie season. This is a train that can't be stopped.
