Train wrecks

Snowpiercer (2013) (d. Bong Joon-ho)

How far can a commercial film with an anti-authoritarian message sustain its narrative momentum? At what point does the train of narrative filmmaking derail from its linear way of storytelling? Traversing the planet to coincide with the length of the year, the film’s train (why not a shinkansen?) is a metaphor for a few things, but the one thing I want to focus on is how it moves through the world like runaway Capital, without stopping at any point, fueled by exploitative labor, endlessly circling the globe to maintain the status quo. Thus when the it finally stops, the passenger cars, which by the way are not unlike strips of film, collide and get thrown out of order and into chaos. Capital time effective stops. And guess what happens? The narrative stops as well. And what does that look like? A black leader of film strip, the likely end of the movie, but since the demands of commercial cinema requires audience uplift or placation, the film offers a brief glimpse of “hope”. As my film companion sharply observed, the image offered to the characters is one that they would not recognize. In fact, the recognition of the image is likely to appease the audience instead, as a happy ending. Note though that the image given to us is a digital construction, which undermines the “hope for humanity” that is initially offered. In this way, the film is about film too: what happens to image in the age of digital construction AND its relation to our revolutionary needs. Bong Joon-Ho stages the confrontation between rebels and fascists with a kind of somatic and psychic satisfaction (in the tradition of great South Korean revenge films) that I was tempted to raise my own fist and join the dissidents. And yet, upon further reflection, with the aid of my fellow viewer, the film seems to contain the rebellious spirit by a narrative twist that makes little sense. By turning the rebellion as a staged event provided by the status quo, a slight yet controlled opening for the expression of dissatisfaction and anger, the film negates the thrilling action set pieces of the movie. There is no other choice in the film but to explode into smithereens. Who and what survives? The audience desire to see these images of revolution and protests which have been slowly entering into film and television, a set of images that either mimic or compete with the actual images of rebellion on the newscasts and on the net. The evident digital construction of the image that closes the film, it is cinema itself that survives in the new technological development of digital image-making. What then happens to our desires to see revolution depicted? What is depicted on screen? The casting, by H-wood standards, is progressive with ample roles to non-white actors. Casting becomes political too: as gay white men have been incorporated into mainstream society, they too have become oppressors, the film suggests. Asians are also shown to be co-opting with their white counterparts, though it’s interesting to see their designation in the society since I didn’t see any decadent Asians but ones who fulfill a function in the hierarchical society of the movie. (Daijobu desuka? Daijobu.) No, Boon doesn’t short shift Asian since the duo comes with a co-protagonist, but not THE protagonist. It’s still a H-wood movie, after all. God forbid a non-martial arts Asian guy as lead, one who is middle aged and not a looker and doesn’t speak English. What else is on screen? Children appear with only a single parent present which indicates to me a kind of magical production which if taken seriously can plausibly explain where all the abundance in the film is coming from. Intentional or not, the missing parent says something about how things are produced and reproduced much like the invisible labor that we have learned to be aware of but do not see represented. This is the reason why notes inserted into items such as clothes or handbags indicating the abusive and harsh conditions of factories have become news. It’s not a human interest story but more in line with “how dare they speak up” or make their presence known, which disrupts the rhythm of my everyday life. How dare they interrupt our carefully calibrated notions of morality. Also, correct me if I’m wrong but one of the consistent themes (that I see) in recent Hollywood films is that of the visibility of invisible labor (something I noted in Pacific Rim). There’s also a preponderance of missing limbs. The film signifies these as symbols of sacrifice. However, it’s not too much of a stretch to think about the losing of limbs in factories with exploitative labor. How are we audiences suppose to understand this from its literal narrative function? How can a limbless population stage a successful coup? Going back to the idea of revolutionary desire, what happens to it? But does lead to political and/or aesthetic change? In commercial cinema, like in this film, it is certain dampened by false and/or happy ending. For answers, I think we must look to other forms of cinematic productions that have yet to bubble up from the margins. Film your local protests and upload them for everyone to see.

#2014