Comment on the science fiction movie "Snow Country Train"

The object of this film's attempt to explain and interpret is always the whole of humanity. Compress the zeros and zeros of our species in a train, analyze and compare different scenes, and show the contradictions in human nature.

　　"Snow Country Train" is a science fiction film with the theme of doomsday disaster. And different from other science fiction films that focus on visual impact and special effects details, its background setting is more symbolic. It simply explained that after the failure of human attempts to mitigate the greenhouse effect, the global chilling temperature plummeted, the ecosystem collapsed, and humans were also extinct on a large scale. Only a very small number of special global trains survived.　　After watching this movie, many people criticized that South Korean directors learned from Americans to make disaster science fiction films, but they didn't have the taste of American heroism. In fact, this interpretation is wrong in terms of direction. This film really has nothing to do with heroism. The object it tries to explain and interpret is always the whole of humanity. Compress the zeros and zeros of our species in a train, analyze and compare different scenes, and show the contradictions in human nature.

　　Machines and humans: the ark of salvation or the trapped cage?　　A train that has been traveling around the earth for 18 years, from the last carriage to the "first class" to the engine room, is like a microcosm of human society. As for the perpetual motion machine as the power source of the train, instead of entangled in its principle, the audience should understand its symbolic meaning: power and power. As long as the leader of the engine room can control it, he can then control the train and still control human society. As the story progresses, the protagonist's uprising, from the bottom of the society to the middle class, to the superstructure, and finally to the leader of the engine room, follows the pyramid of interests and rights. The structure in the reality of human history is implicit here.

　　As the ark for the continuation of the human race, the train has become a cage for imprisoning mankind and a tool of rule. It makes people think: Is the train serving people, or is people a part or slave of the train? It stands to reason that mankind invented tools to make them serve themselves. All tools should serve mankind. But if mankind cannot maintain this tool well, then the tool will age, be damaged and cannot continue to function. When in the movie, the survival of mankind itself begins to depend on the survival of this tool, only by sacrificing more "lower" lives to complete the preservation of "higher" lives. One of the most special is that when the "ruler" of the train is about to die of old age, his "successor" must also put the train in the first place, and remind himself from time to time: the reason why he is concerned about this machine and this train The worship is not for the train itself, but for the living environment it provides to humans. However, for the survival of the train, if the lives of some people can be sacrificed arbitrarily, is it the train or the people? The role of the tool depends on the user, and the wrench can also be used to kill. The train is only used as a magnifying glass in the film, magnifying the dark side of human nature.

　　Protagonist and villain: Without the right choice, we are all just making the best choice at the moment.　　First of all, Curtis, the hero of the film, does have a heroic temperament, but as stated at the beginning of this article, this is not a heroic story. From the overall point of view, the actor Curtis is just a pawn of the villain BOSS Villefort and the old man with broken leg Gilliam: Since many years ago, the ruler Villefort and Gilliam at the rear of the car have planned several times together. The purpose of the failed revolutionary uprising was twofold: one was to reduce the population on the train and to reduce material consumption; the other was to give illusory hope to the people at the bottom of the train. This baggage shaken out at the end of the film sublimates the overall ideological nature of the film, and the political irony is extremely strong.　　Secondly, the villain in this film is not Villefort. Villefort firmly believed that human beings would not be able to live off this train for at least several decades, even one or two hundred years, so he would treat the people on the train as a number and cut them out at will for the sake of the train's survival. Another image is the old man Gilliam with a broken hand and leg. He is willing to sacrifice himself and not to see the humans in the train killing each other, but secretly made an agreement with Villefort to encourage the revolution to reduce the population. This behavior itself is also a helpless move after recognizing the environment in which the train is located. In his opinion, this is a necessary evil that must be done for human survival.　　Throughout the film, everyone is not as good as the sky, and no one has achieved the original goal. And their actions are just to make the best choice in their place-this is human nature.

　　Child: Fuse and Hope　　Children are an important and complex element in many works of art. Generally they represent innocence, purity, fragility and hope. Whether in the real natural disasters or man-made disasters, or in the world-destroying disasters of movies, many people often help children spontaneously, and even sacrifice themselves to save their lives. This is a manifestation of kindness in human nature and a symbol of civilization in human culture.　　In this film, the train is a miniature of the human society, which is small and complete, and the child's artistic image exists as a fuse. The hot spots throughout the movie are ignited by children. For the first time, the high-level taking away the black boy triggered a collective resistance from the passengers at the bottom of the rear carriage. The cruel amputation of the boy's father intensified class conflicts in the train. For the second time, the insurgents entered a carriage, a school for education on the train. The education carried out here is indoctrinated and brainwashed. The result is that children have formed wrong knowledge, narrow and paranoid thinking, and slowly grow into defenders of a deformed society. The third time was the situation of the people at the back of the car when they first got on the car from the memories of the hero. At that time, in order to survive, people brutally killed each other and ate corpses to survive. When faced with whether to kill a child, he felt the torment of conscience and morality for the first time outside of his survival instinct. This also has a profound impact on the decision he is making now. For the last time, after knowing the truth and undergoing brainwashing, the male protagonist almost succumbed to the social rules of the train and became the next dictator. But he saw the child being used as an engine replacement part, which evoked his original intention.　　The image of the child is the fuse throughout the film. As the weakest group in the human image, they have a double meaning: they motivate people to move closer to good, and they represent the future and hope of mankind.

　　Conclusion　　As a movie with apocalyptic themes that explores human nature, "Snow Country Train" is not particularly outstanding. But the way it alludes to the structure of human society to express humanity is different from other apocalyptic movies. Because in the apocalyptic movies, the original social structure of mankind has been destroyed. The film uses an international lineup, and uses different languages ​​and cultural backgrounds to expand contradictions and conflicts, but it also achieves the same goal by different routes. Like many apocalyptic movies, this film finally gives an open and hopeful ending to allow the characters in the film to complete human self-salvation. (Finish)