当世界即使结束，幸存者们还能继续生活下去吗？科幻史诗电影《末日列车》呈现给观众一辆带有永久驱动器宏伟的单轨列车，针对全球升温控制实验的幻想破灭后，所有的幸存者作为社区成员继续生活在一个新的冰河时代。本文是对电影《末日列车》总略论，英语论文题目，一个电影的寓意才是电影的总文化意蕴。
Part I
When the world comes to an end, where can the survivors go on with their living? The sci-fi epic film Snowpiercer presents the audience a fantasy about one magnificent monorail train with perpetual drive where all survivors continue their live as community members in the new Ice Age after failed global-warming-controlling experiments. Directed by the Korean director Bong Joon-ho, the film is certified as fresh by the website “rotten tomatoes” despite its frequently discussed topic of class confrontation.
Ty Burr, a film reviewer from Boston Global, compliments this Korean moviemaker in his review ‘Snowpiercer’: Train in vain, writing that Bong “ascends to the master level of commercial filmmaking” (1). Instead of focusing on the technique used in the movie, which is a common topic for review, Ty Burr finds a novel entry point. To wit, instead of dealing with how the sound effect, lightning, camera shot affect the way audience feel about the movie, Burr emphasizes on the representation of social relations in his review. With the utilization of pop Marxism, he analyzes the epitome of nowadays society represented on that monorail, with the wealthy people living in the front compartment where the living is extremely comfortable and the poor people stuck in the back which is basically a living hell for them. However, under the circumstance, people from the back develop an almost unbreakable relationship like a family. By analyzing the film from a cultural instead of professional perspective, Ty Burr speak highly of the movie, saying that “on the level of a popcorn thrill ride, “Snowpiercer” is a beaut” (1) and rating it with 4.5 stars. Although the review does not comment on any professional technique used in the movie, which is a possible implication that the target readers of the review are not professional people but populace who are just watching the movie for fun, a beaut even just “on the level of a popcorn thrill ride” means a huge approval of this Asian-directed movie with Hollywood characteristics.
Part II
Snowpiercer: To the Darkest and Brightest Sites
Adopted from the namesake graphic novel in 1986, the movie Snowpiercer tells a story about revolt. The story begins in the year 2031, 17 years after the failed attempt by governments to control global-warming which in reverse caused the earth back to Ice Age. All the survivors boarded on the Snowpiercer, a monorail with perpetual-motion engine produced by Wilford, the transportation magnate. Like many Hollywood movies, Snowpiercer centers itself around how people from back compartment, after 17 years of suppressed living, successfully revolt against the wealthy upper class under the direction of the leading character, Curtis.
With environmental problems emerging like mushrooms after rain, the concerns about the worsening relationship between human and nature are more and more represented in the movies, such as 2017, The Day After Tomorrow, etc.. The Korean moviemaker Bong Joon-ho presents to the audience his Noah in a train’s shape, on which the human natures are represented incisively and vividly: selfishness and devotion, nobility and baseness, interests first and humanity first. Those human natures are embodied in two symbols: train, and children.
Train: a saver or a trapper?
Snowpiercer provides both the macro-context and micro-context, with the former being snow and the latter piercer (train). The two contexts supplement and contradict each other: the train exists because of the snow but when the snow or the piercer experiences a change, the other part respectively changes. Therefore, to keep everything as it is, it is of great importance to make sure both parts operate normally, to wit, to reach the state of balance, as it is said in the movie. The train serves as a critical role in the movie, the place where confrontation begins and the main battlefield of the revolt. Following Curtis’ pace of revolt, people from back compartment go through the last compartment to the first-class compartment and finally to the engine. The path of lower-class, middle-class, upper-class and finally the governors makes Snowpiercer Babel.
However, the train, which is supposed to be a saver, turns out to be a trapper to which people aboard are the slaves. Gradually, the piercer transcends from the role of serving to the role of being served. Ironically, when the governor is about to retire, he demands his successor to follow the lead of the machine, to serve it, to be loyal to it, and to respect it. This act arises the question: what kind of role does the Snowpiercer play in the movie and what role the human being?
Children: Trigger and Hope
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