Snowpiercer's Hierarchical Society and the Futility of a Hierarchical Revolution Yasser Owino 12th Grade

On the surface, Bong Joon-Ho's Snowpiercer is quite literally a linear story. After a mass extinction event leaving the world in uninhabitable cold, the last fraction of humanity survives on an ark-like train that will travel around the world in its supposed eternity. The film chronicles the attempt of the impoverished members of the train's tail section, as they try to overtake the god-like captain at the very front, Wilford (Ed Harris). As the tail section warriors led militarily by Curtis (Chris Evans) and spiritually by Gilliam (John Hurt) make their way through successive compartments of the train, we are treated to a sort of live-action flow chart of the class system in a hierarchical society. It's quite obvious that Snowpiercer is an allegory of class culture and how tensions inert within it lead to resentment and eventually revolution. Some have criticized the film for being so transparent in this respect. The genius in filmmaker Bong Joon-Ho's art-house, sci-fi action film is not in the message as such but how through the tools and techniques of film making, he conveys it.

For example, it's understandable symbolically why the tail section of the train might not have any windows. For the passengers of that section, the...