Set on a perpetual motion train in the frozen future of 2031,
Snowpiercer is not a movie to examine logically. Really, the premise is pretty silly and there are a lot of questions that the story raises that go unanswered. However, if you approach the movie as a fable, a story with moral messages, then it holds together pretty well. It helps that some of the leads (Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton) turn in solid performances, the action scenes are intense and the set and costume design is believable.
After a hair-brained attempt to stop global warming goes awry and causes a new ice age, a tiny segment of humanity exists on a train, one that navigates path across every continent (except Antarctica). The passengers exist in a strict class system with those farthest from the engine live in squalor, the middle classes occupying the "working cars" (food production, water purification, train systems) in the middle and the decadent upper class living in drug dens and sauna cars in the front. This is not a subtle story.
Curtis (Chris Evans), one of those dwelling in the rear, organizes a revolution and manages to fight his way to the engine, losing most of his followers along the way. He confronts the train designer, Wilford (Ed Harris). Wilford explains that the entire revolt had been planned by himself and Curtis' mentor, Gilliam (John Hurt) as a way to cut down on excess population and maintain equilibrium on the train. Wilford offers Curtis the job of being the new engineer, keeping the train running and humanity alive. For a moment, he almost agrees. Then he finds out that children from the tail of the train are being used to replace worn out parts of the engine. He helps drug addict/train security system developer Namgoong (Song Kang-ho) and his stoner/possibly psychic daughter Yona (Go Ah-sung) blow a hole in the side of the train. Curtis also damages the engine by jamming his arm into the mechanism. The explosion causes an avalanche, destroying the train. Yona and five-year-old Timmy (Marcanthonee Reis) are the only survivors. As they emerge from the wreckage, they spot a polar bear in the distance. The End.
The end of the movie...and of the human race. This is a pretty bleak film. Starting with the attempt to manipulate the environment (something some people actually want to do; read more about climate engineering) everyone makes bad decisions, often for good reasons. In the context of the train, the first mistake was letting people like Curtis on in the first place. The train was set up as a closed system, but, for some reason, Wilford let one thousand extra people on-board. Wilford's overseers, led by Mason (the incredible Tilda Swinton) think they are doing what is necessary to ensure the survival of the human race. If that means taking children and using them as slave labor, so be it. Curtis and his followers think they are going to win a better life for themselves; but given the conditions on the train, it is hard to see how that would work. Even if successful, they would just become another ruling class (the end result of most proletarian revolutions). The final result of all these choices; the extinction of humanity.
I've read some analyses of the film claiming it is anti-capitalist; maybe that's what the filmmakers intended. But, it seems much more pro-middle class than anything else. The poor - those in the rear - produce nothing. They are not proles in the sense of laborers; they are an indigent class, on the dole. They are the restless hordes of the welfare state, something that is a hallmark of the social welfare state. The rich are shown to be equally worthless. It is the middle class - the farmers, repairmen, security personnel and the like - who actually do the things necessary to keep everyone alive. In addition, it is a productive capitalist, Wilford, who develops the means for survival, the Engine. The film makes it clear that the only government program mentioned - the attempt at climate engineering - is a disaster. It is also clear that the system in place on the train is not a liberal, free-market democracy; it has more in common with a tyrannical prison-state like North Korea (no surprise since director Bong Joon-Ho is from South Korea).
In this sense, the movie is actually pretty pro-free market, at least as far as it deals with functional economics, class mobility and political freedom. It is an alliance between the productive capitalist and the middle class that keeps the train functioning. It eventually falls apart when the rich (who produce nothing) and poor (who have nothing) clash. It also shows what happens when the productive capitalist becomes enamored with the product of the free-market system (represented by the Engine), but allows the actual system, and the inherent risks to power and wealth necessitated by social-ecnomic mobility and dispersed political power, to atrophy.
To enjoy the film, you have to accept the premise and not nit-pick the film; this is not hard science fiction. What it is, is a thought provoking mediation on political and economic philosophy, punctuated by ax fights, wrapped up in the trappings of sci-fi. Anyway, check the film out.
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