English A: Extended Essay

Written By seraph lee

How does Bong Joon Ho’s Snowpiercer portray the similarities of a capitalist system to a totalitarian system?

Table of contents

  1. Introduction

  2. The ‘preordained position’: oppression and exploitation of the lower class

  3. Artificiality of belief systems: falsehood of social mobility, hope and redemption

  4. Possibilities outside the system

  5. Conclusion

  6. Works Cited

1. Introduction

Snowpiercer (2013), a Bong Joon Ho post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller adapted from the French graphic novel Le Transpierceneige, depicts an eternally running train which accommodates the surviving population following a cataclysmic global cooling event in attempt to reverse the impact of climate change. In it houses people across different socioeconomic classes, and the train’s compartments are stratified as such; the film follows the lower-class protagonists as they try to overthrow the inequality-ridden class system on the train.

The most innate connection that audiences, and even most academic studies, make upon reviewing the film is that Snowpiercer is an explicit criticism of capitalism, ‘an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state’ (Oxford Languages). However, the film’s unconventionality perhaps arises from its unsettling resemblance to a totalitarian regime, ‘a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state’ (Oxford Languages), as Bong inadvertently draws parallels between a capitalist and a totalitarian society throughout the film through visual devices such as spatial design, color scheme and mise-en-scene, dialogues and symbolisms.

Snowpiercer portrays the similarities of a capitalist system to a totalitarian system in the below distinct senses: the existence of ‘preordained’ social class where lower classes are oppressed and exploited by upper classes, the fabrication of artificial belief systems to maintain a false sense of hope, and the systems’ inescapability, leaving room at the end for the audience to contemplate possibilities outside the confines of the two systems. By comparing capitalism to the infamously oppressive totalitarian regime, Bong urges the modern, liberal-minded audience to rethink the very system they live under. The film conveys simultaneously a sense of dread and hopefulness: it is a warning of the pitfalls of capitalism, but also poses the possibility of humanity making a substantial breakthrough from it.

2. The ‘preordained position’: oppression and exploitation of the lower class

Through spatial design, color scheme, dialogue and symbolism, Bong conveys the inalterability of onboarders’ social statuses. The whole train is supposedly a microcosm of capitalism: under it, the lower class is oppressed and exploited by the upper class, so that they do not dare overthrow the upper class and the upper class can continue to exploit the lower class. Through illustrating this capitalist system in a similarly oppressive light as a totalitarian system, the idea that capitalist systems have just about as much freedom as totalitarian systems is propagated.

The preordained position

In the Snowpiercer, different social classes are exhibited as a linear progression along the train, with the lower classes at the ‘tail’ and the upper classes at the ‘front’, designed as a visual representation of social hierarchy (Yi). Classes are segregated into compartments and do not live under an interconnected ecosystem, illustrating the compartmentalized nature of capitalist society in a mode as rigidly fortified as a totalitarian realm — people of different social classes do not interact with one another. The richer classes being more physically ahead than the lower classes also shows their ‘superiority’ over them, and the class system’s linearity implies the reality of the social hierarchy as a set-in-stone, narrow one-way-road.

Inter-class disparities are exacerbated by Bong’s deliberate use of color scheme. The tail section — the first setting the audience is exposed to — is grim, dark and compact. The primary hues dominating these scenes are subdued shades of dark blues and greens, creating an oppressive and dirty atmosphere, so much that the only presence of vibrant color in the scenes are seen in the front-sectioners’ clothes. As the film progresses, ‘muted colors explode into the full spectrum’ (Puschak) upon the audience and characters’ initial exposure to the middle- and upper-class sections, where the hedonistic lifestyles in the fronter-sections starkly juxtapose with the appalling lower-class experience, showing the outrageous extent of socioeconomic discrepancy that exists under capitalism, in a way that mirrors the imbalance of opportunities, enjoyments and economic power as totalitarianism.

The Snowpiercer’s strict hierarchy is further cemented with a striking monologue from Minister Mason, the train’s spokesperson. The monologue is heavily propelled by a head-shoe analogy, comparing the placement of a shoe at the head to a tail-sectioner interfering with the front section; in both instances, the ‘natural’ order of things is disrupted. The ones who benefit from capitalism adamantly maintain this ‘order’, as it allows them to continue to prosper and live their lavish lives without the tail section’s disturbance. The totalitarian methods of oppression to sedate the tail-section mass is a caricatured representation of the well-off in their attempts to maintain and hoard their wealth. Comparing tail-sectioners to a shoe also represents them having to take on arduous manual-labour jobs, whilst the head represents the ‘thinking’, decision-making jobs upper classes can take on; this works in the idea of both capitalist and totalitarian regimes in that the masses work to benefit those at the top.

Exploitation of the lower class

The lower class is unrelentingly exploited by the upper class in order for them to continue benefiting themselves. This is displayed through the dialogue between the guards and a tail-section elderly couple, Gerald and Doris, when the front-sectioners look for a violinist to which the couple hesitantly volunteers. They only take Gerald and not Doris, shouting ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ [p.4-5] at him when he plainly tells them ‘Then I won’t go’ if they do not take Doris with him, going so far as to whack Doris in the face with the butt of a soldier’s rifle and stomp on her left arm. This exemplifies the upper class’s sheer disregard for the fact that tail-sectioners are sentient, feeling beings well aware of the unjustness of their treatment. While totalitarian states explicitly show no mercy to the lower class and dehumanize them unabashedly (Friedrich and Brzezinski), capitalists are implicitly desensitized to the sufferings of the lower class as they commodify and dehumanize their entire class (Hermann), reducing their worth to a tool to further the indulgences of the above classes.

The sole food sources of the tail-sectioners are black gelatinous protein bars, later revealed to be made of cockroaches. This represents the commodification of the tail-enders: they are only fed for sustenance, and are thus given the cheapest source of food possible, as if it were merely fuel to barely keep them alive for potential use as human capital. Totalitarian states commonly withhold food supply to its citizens, using this to reinforce the reliance of the people on the ruler for all their needs (“What is Totalitarianism?”); this comparison insinuates that capitalist systems are created in similar ways — for instance, how the lower class is seemingly dependent on the minimum-wage jobs upper classes provide to maintain a living, when in reality their dependence is due to the fact that capitalism creates and forces this ‘dependence’ upon the lower class as they do not provide an alternative (Burgess); they are, in a way, predestined by their ‘preordained position’. In both systems, they are withheld from any opportunity to access financial resources of any more than the poverty threshold, and so the protein blocks symbolize the bare minimum necessities that are conservatively supplied to them.

In the scene inside Wilford’s compartment it is soon revealed that the two tail-sectioner children Timmy and Andy were used as manual labor to operate the ‘eternal engine’ — Timmy is found working in a confined space underneath a floor tile with hardly enough headroom, surrounded by moving gears. This symbolizes the ruthless treatment of child labor in capitalist modern economies, tying in with the idea of an ‘eternal’ machine as a symbol of industrialization, and the Industrial Revolution being the rise of capitalism and the beginning of prevalence of child labour (Eastern Illinois University). Children are forced to work in extremely harsh conditions and to sacrifice their childhood for the industry, showing how tail-sectioner children are not exempt from exploitation, being exposed to it from an early age and be continued to be exploited for more years to come.

The mise-en-scene in the two above scenes are strikingly similar: Timmy being in the same position as the cockroaches shows how little the human lives of tail-sectioners are valued; they are only there to serve a practical purpose, nothing more. The high angle shot presents Timmy in a place of inferiority; additionally, gears move in perpetual cyclical movement around the subject similar to the cyclical movement of the sacred engine, a sign that capitalism is properly running and in place.

Capitalism and totalitarianism are both inherently class-based systems where people’s rights and material possessions are preordained by their social standing. Both systems brutally oppress the lower class while higher classes continue to have the upper hand, perpetuating and exacerbating social inequalities.

3. Artificiality of belief systems: falsehood of social mobility, hope and redemption

Further integrating set design, color scheme, dialogue and symbolism, Bong propagates the idea that people need to be psychologically subordinated in order to be compliant to such oppressive systems. Therefore, belief systems are imposed: where in totalitarian systems people must plead loyalty to the dictator (Friedrich and Brzezinski) and believe they are ‘merciful’ or great, capitalism’s belief system is the false idea of social mobility — the central selling-point of capitalist ideals like the American Dream (Devine). Either way, both systems manipulate the masses to believe the system works in citizens’ favour, and a false sense of hope is given to the oppressed so they do not feel as though they are being dictated or controlled by the system.

Wilford and the eternal engine

The ‘sacred engine’ is a recurring motif throughout the film; it symbolizes religion (Weninger), and is the form of ‘religion’ the onboarders are expected to subscribe to. Mentioned synchronously with its owner Wilford, whose omnipresence across all of the train manifests through set design, from the sign with the words ‘Property of Wilford’ plastered above Gilliam in the tail-section compartment, to the large ‘W’ logos present on every gateway, citizens are expected to blindly worship Wilford and the Sacred Engine, reminiscent of other totalitarian states with an ubiquitous abstract figurehead such as Big Brother from George Orwell’s 1984.

The front-sectioners bolster this reverence for the Sacred Engine through manufacturing a psychological dependence (Weninger) of onboarders towards the creator. The repetition of ‘all’ in Minister Mason’s monologue accentuates the idea that everything would not exist without the Sacred Engine, presenting it as a source of salvation for the onboarders. This idea rings true for capitalism as well in how the upper class disguises themselves as a provider of economic opportunity and stability for the working class. In reality, Wilford and the sacred engine, like the upper class, are the reason why the lower class continues to live in poverty or destitution (Keltner), yet by glorifying capitalism in the same way totalitarian regimes glorify their dictators, the beneficiaries of the system attempt to blindside the oppressed from the truth.

Establishing unified allegiance to Wilford and the sacred engine also requires indoctrination of the onboarders, and the most effective method of doing so is through education. The classroom scene is a perfect representation of indoctrination and the passing-on of desired values through education. Audiences get a glimpse into how young students in the classroom are ‘educated’: they watch a video infographic, similar to modern educational videographics, but with an Orwellian propagandic tinge to it as history is selectively represented and important events that do not perfectly serve Wilford’s agenda are erased from the children’s ‘education’. Bong may be implying that the modern education system is slowly gravitating towards working in favor of capitalism, and that people are learning from an increasingly earlier age to foster dependence on it (Paz).

The visuals utilize bright, saturated Wes Anderson-style pastel colors, which imaginably appeals to the children in the scene with its idyllic nature, yet is unsettling to the viewer as it conveys a false innocence. The compartment on the train with the most idyllic, peaceful colors thus far is the one where children are indoctrinated, suggesting how capitalistic and totalitarian systems are most ‘at peace’ when everyone is compliant and obliging — that is the ‘ideal’ for such systems. The dramatic irony lies in how only just before this scene was a scene of bloodshed and massacre experienced by the lower class, yet the children are clearly oblivious and will continue to be oblivious so long as peace for them is maintained. This mirrors how middle and upper classes are easily conditioned into believing capitalism works and is faultless, unconcerned with the full picture of how people outside of their social standings suffer under it (Dasgupta and Mukherjee).

False hope and inescapability of the system

Of the lower class who are dissatisfied with the way they live, some hold the utopian, idealistic view that the system can be ‘changed’ once he makes it to the front. Through Curtis’s dialogue in which he expresses his desire to kill Wilford to ‘liberate the Tail Section’ [p.59], he exemplifies the initial optimism of lower classes who believe in the possibility of social mobility and reform, who believe the dire inequalities under capitalism can and must be overthrown, bearing great similarities to characters such as 1984’s Winston and his initial determination to revolt against the totalitarian Ingsoc in which both characters possess the belief that once they make it to the front they ‘will be different’ [p.4]. However, neither characters have said how exactly they will act ‘differently’; their preeminent goal at this stage is purely to make it to the front, rendering the idea of reform under either capitalism or totalitarianism as something that remains rather abstract and intangible (Ramanna).

As the film progresses, it is revealed that the entire revolution was intricately planned by the front-sectioners in attempt to maintain balance. Once again through dialogue, Minister Mason proclaims ‘precisely 74% of you shall die’ [p.48] in the fight scene between the soldiers and revolutionists, corroborating and subtly foreshadowing the fact that the revolution is not only within expectation of the front-sectioners such that they can come up with a precise statistic of how many people to kill off, but in a way essentially orchestrated by them as a means of controlling the size of the tail-section population. This proposes the idea that under capitalism, seeming pursuits for freedom are by systemic design; yet once the end is reached, no one truly breaks through from the shackles of capitalism (Capusella). Reminiscent of the illusory hope Winston experiences as he joins The Brotherhood in hopes of overthrowing the Party, ideas of social mobility and the American Dream are presented as a lie, as false as the sense of hope for overthrowing a totalitarian regime.

As Curtis makes it to the end to Wilford’s compartment, he learns that Wilford was expecting him all along. Wilford names Curtis as the successor of the eternal engine, handing him a final scarlet slip with the words ‘TRAIN’ written on it, the red slip being a recurring prop that appears various times prior to this scene, further confirming that the revolution was carefully calculated by Wilford. The handover of the slip is a visual symbolism of the torch-passing to Curtis who takes Wilford’s place as the Snowpiercer’s leader, mirroring the idea that only a very few manage to successfully move up the capitalist social ladder, and those who do realize that the system is so inalterable they must continue to perpetuate the system — similar to how when a dictator is overthrown in a totalitarian regime, the overthrower takes its place. The slip’s subdued red color inadvertently conjures the imagery of ‘blood on his hands’ as the torch is passed, symbolizing how overthrowing such oppressive systems occur at too great a cost.

The color scheme of the engine room is predominated by an off-white color, ‘a spoiled white symbolizing the false redemption of Curtis’s revolution ... and indeed, as the film bears out, his revolution doesn’t represent salvation for the sufferers of the train; as he himself realizes when Wilford names him as the successor, Curtis was only perpetuating the system he sought to bring down - like so many revolutions in the real world, Curtis’s and Gilliam’s revolution was in fact an essential part of the exploitative system’ (Puschak). The inalterability and inescapability of the train’s system, unless by radical means of destruction, depicts the concept of capitalist realism, ‘the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable economic and political system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it’ (Fisher 2). Just as there is a lack of alternative to totalitarianism, such class-based, elite-centric societal systems operate in an almost unbreakable cycle, and it is insinuated by the way the film plays out that it is easier to imagine the actual downfall of humanity than it is to imagine the end of such systems.

Wilford and the eternal engine act as a central belief system on the train, paralleling indoctrination strategies in totalitarian regimes, while being surprisingly reminiscent of how capitalism runs on the false belief of freedom and social mobility to manipulate the mass into being willingly acquiescent to the system.

4. Possibilities outside the system

Through the two characters Namgoong Minsoo and Yona, portrayal of the outside world and the film’s ambiguous ending, Bong raises the question of whether the oppressive regimes of capitalism and totalitarianism should be left running despite the fact that they actively oppress people since they theoretically allow humanity to continue, or if dismantling the system and starting fresh at the cost of humanity is the more worthwhile option.

Namgoong Minsoo and Yona

Namgoong Minsoo is the designer of the train, familiar with the intricate dangers of capitalism or totalitarianism; he does not possess the same naive optimism as Curtis in bringing down the system as he is aware of its futility. His daughter Yona is a train-baby clairvoyant; she represents the future generation, the idealistic visionaries among the oppressed who possess a keen foresight and the ability to shape a future potentially free from the confines of the existing oppressive regimes.

Most of the film focuses on a linear movement from the back of the train to the front of the train — movement within the train. Yet Namgoong Minsoo and Yona symbolize an overlooked perspective, one that would eventually put an end to the inequality-ridden systems of capitalism and totalitarianism: to look beyond the train; to look laterally instead of linearly, outwards instead of forwards (Puschak). Various scenes in which either character is featured show them staring outside the window, suggesting their indifference towards life on the train; however, the world outside it and seeking liberation from the confines of this train intrigues them. The world outside symbolizes a post-capitalist, post-totalitarian world: a post-capitalist world may be characterized by the lack of possession of individual wealth — a world in which no one ‘owns’ anything (Mason), whereas a post-totalitarian world is simply a world where lives of the individual are no longer dictated by an overarching government (Guyora). The father-daughter duo’s prepossession with the world outside symbolizes visionaries’ yearnings for opportunity to start over and build a more equal society.

The film’s ending

The Snowpiercer is completely obliterated in the end, with Curtis giving Namgoong Minsoo and Yona the green light to blow up the exit to the train. The revolution ends in a Pyrrhic victory — the revolutionists win at too great a cost for it to be considered a victory (Taylor 45). In order for either capitalism or totalitarianism to change, the entire existing system must be destroyed.

All those aboard the train were killed except for Yona and Timmy, who were saved by Curtis and Namgoong during the explosion. The two sole survivors are both ‘train babies’: young, purely-intentioned, hopeful, and never-before exposed to the outside world, though Yona had always shown a keen infatuation with it. This symbolizes the idea that those corrupted with the oppressive ideologies of capitalism and totalitarianism need to all die off in order for them to truly start over. Both survivors grew up in the tail section and have firsthand experience of oppressive systems working against them; the ‘new system’ thus seems to be considerably more hopeful as it is led by people from the bottom for the first time, making way for a potentially more empathetic system.

The ending scene is the audience’s first full exposure to the outside environment. Natural lighting is utilized for the first time, and its color scheme consists of shades of wintry blue and gray but predominated by a clean white, symbolizing an untarnished blank slate for the two survivors to start on and the vastness of possibilities this opens up for them outside of the capitalist and totalitarian confines.

Just as capitalism and totalitarianism are both previously thought to have no viable alternative, the outside world is previously thought to be uninhabitable. However, the existence of a polar bear in the wild disproves that preconception. The polar bear symbolizes the possibility of life and rebirth, suggesting that there had always been a possibility of creating a life outside the oppressive systems humanity chooses to confine ourselves to; we have just never made the first step yet.

The film’s ambiguous ending gives the audience several possibilities to consider: the two are either able to reproduce and continue the human race, or, like the frozen figures in Revolt of the Seven, are unable to survive in the almost barren frozen land. The great uncertainty of such a decision to dismantle the existing class system is what hinders humanity from making that step, as humans can either make great progress, or the whole of civilization can fail completely and — in Yona and Timmy’s case — go extinct. The cost is too great for people to dare to make that step. Nevertheless, Curtis and Namgoong’s decision to decimate the train rectifies what capitalism and totalitarianism had failed to do by prioritizing respecting humanity over saving humanity, as both systems lose sight of human respect by directing their focus on ‘keeping humanity running’. Whether humanity lives on for longer is another subject, but the bottom line, at least according to Curtis’s and Namgoong’s ideal, is that for those who live on, their lives must be respected.

From The Brotherhood’s plan to fully dismantle the Party in 1984, to Fight Club’s Tyler Durden blowing up skyscrapers to symbolize the destruction of consumerism, to Dr. Strangelove ending with footage of nuclear explosions, Bong raises the same question as any other artist that has explored the idea of oppressive regimes: the systems may be oppressive, but they still work in the sense that people are alive and humanity continues to live on. From such, is it worthwhile to start over, and is the only way to start over or make actual progress to wipe out all of humanity — to kill all of mankind and start fresh? Bong, like the directors of other films exploring tyrannical regimes, does not provide a definitive answer, and leaves it up to the audience to fill in the blanks.

5. Conclusion

As displayed by the Snowpiercer’s oppressive train system, capitalist and totalitarian systems are presented to be similar to one another in their dire inequality and seeming inescapability. Both have the state’s or elite’s best interest in mind, and both systems see human needs and emotions of the ‘mass’ as an obstacle instead of priority, causing the lower class to be neglected and oppressed. In both systems, subservience of the mass is maintained by imposing a false sense of belief: in totalitarian states, this is done through indoctrination and manipulative propaganda; while in capitalistic societies, people of lower classes subscribe to the false belief of social mobility, or something resemblant of the American Dream, when it is not promised and extremely difficult to obtain in reality. Once capitalism or totalitarianism becomes a mode of operation in a society, it becomes structurally hardwired into a society’s functioning system such that it is almost irreversible and impossible to escape; such uncompassionate systems require significant intervention, or even a complete destruction of the system, to take down.

Although Snowpiercer suggests a reality where once the train is designed as such the system cannot be changed unless by destruction, the real-life system is a bit more flexible than that on Snowpiercer. While it is impossible to eradicate inequality, humanity should avoid an outcome like the Pyrrhic victory in the film, yet continue to strive to alleviate inequalities on a systemic level and avoid repeating the mistakes Wilford has made in constructing a system so harmful to society at large.

6. Works Cited

Appendix

  • Bong, Joon Ho, director. Snowpiercer (transcript) (final draft). CJ Entertainment and Weinstein Company, 11 Nov. 2011.* **

* Page numbers denoted as [p.XX] in the essay, without reference to any other authors, refer to quotes taken from the above copy of the transcript.
** All included photographs are stills taken from the film itself. [Removed from page due to copyright reasons]

References

seraph lee
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