Snowpiercer is horror. And brutal. And cautionary. And futuristic. And probably one of the finest films of last year which nobody saw.
The apocalypse of the Ice Age has come to haunt earth again. A bunch of survivors are in a futuristic train which is going in circles around the earth as a modern age ark, carrying within it all kinds of survivors - the haves and have nots, the privileged and not, the exploited and the exploiters. And there is trouble a-brewing. There is resentment in the barracks (back of the train), and a plan is being hatched to take over the command center (the front). And, as expected, everything spins out of control.
The story of the privileged ensuring preeminence, by hook or by crook, is combined with the survival instincts of a Lord of the Rings, and the war which ensues within the claustrophobic environs of the train becomes both a battle for territory and a voyage of discovery. And when the circle of exploitation closes in a stunning climax, it leaves us to wonder about man's continuous attempt to control nature: natural selection takes on a different meaning.
Visually stunning, and imaginative even in it's violence, the film ends on the snow flake of a hope. The world has to start on a clean slate. It has to start from innocence. Before all of the old human instincts of survival and competition (and folly) set in, and the seeds of destruction are sown yet again.
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