End of the Line

Hello everyone and welcome back to Dystopian Eats. This week I am taking a look at the 2013 film Snowpiercer. Instead of picking a film that I already have seen, I decided to leave the choice up to my friends. Over the last couple weeks, I have told many people about my project and asked them if they knew a movie that would work as a subject of a post. Though many movies seemed a possible contender, Snowpiercer, a movie I had not heard about until surveying, was mentioned an uncountable amount of times from a variety of people. As it turns out, Snowpiercer offers a perfect example of food in a dystopian future. The movie takes place on a frozen-over Earth where the only life left is on a large train that circumnavigates the world once a year. The train is organized by social class, with the upper class in the front and the lower class in the back. Snowpiercer's story centers around Curtis, a lower class man, who attempts to lead a rebellion against the upper class. All in all, the film presents a powerful argument on food distribution and social class in the future.

Since I have had an exhausting day, I choose to watch the movie alone. Although I enjoy watching movies with friends, viewing a movie by myself allows an escape I don't get when other people are laughing, commenting, ect. Today I decide to go with classic movie-watching faire by picking out some organic, whole grain popcorn to snack on. Popcorn creates an interesting struggle for me. Its light, fluffy goodness satisfies only for a short time. I tend to shovel down all of the popcorn before the movie has even started, like a popcorn addict. It's not even that I particularly love popcorn, I just find it extremely easy to eat.  So, within the first 5 minutes of Snowpiercer, my bowl of popcorn is empty. Within the first 15 minutes of writing this blog post, I'm halfway through another bag.       

The movie opens with a vivid presentation of the back of the train. Each member of the back receives a "protein block" as their source of food for the day. These blocks are reminiscent of thick Jello and do not look the least bit appetizing. The movie sets up a power struggle between the upper class and lower class citizens. From the depiction of the upper class, it is apparent that they are not eating protein blocks; the one upperclassman present in the first part of the film looks quite healthy and well fed. In an allusion to the first years of the train's existence, where the lower class was not given any source of food, Curtis exclaims, "You know what I hate about myself? I know what people taste like. I know that babies taste best." This statement is quite powerful and shows a striking similarity to Soylent Green. For every movie I analyze, it becomes more apparent that the themes and ideas of Soylent Green have blazed the path for most modern day dystopian films. Anyways, the difference between Snowpiercer and Soylent Green is that in Snowpiercer, eating someone else is a conscious choice. Those in the back of the train cannot play the "ignorance" card, they have to kill and eat another human being with full knowledge. People even start cutting off their own limbs to "donate" to the hunger cause. This abnormal source of substance depicts the sheer desperation of the people.

These people's struggles are magnified as they move towards the engine room (where the owner of the train lives) during their rebellion. The first cart they visit houses the protein bar manufacturing plant. Curtis looks into the machine where their breakfast, lunch, and dinner is made and sees a giant tub of bugs and larva being mashed together into the recognizable compact bar form. This scene made me sick to my stomach. Although it sounds moderately gross in words, the visual is astonishing. Moving on down the train, each cart closer to the engine room gets fancier and fancier. One cart houses a full aquarium with a sushi bar that serves all sorts of exotic fish. The group from the back of the train indulges in some swordfish, this pit stop being the first real meal they have had in almost 17 years. I was astonished at how quickly the train went from the gritty world of the back, to the futuristic, luxury sushi cart. The group would make their way through a garden cart filled with fresh fruit, a butcher cart, and many other food related carts that had been hidden from their eyes for 17 years. The expressions on the group's faces make it seem like they have forgotten the sight, smell, taste, and touch of real food.

Wait. I must interrupt my post briefly; an epiphany has forced me to clear some things up that I'm brushing over. The journey from back to front is a blood bath. The way I described Curtis and crew walking from cart to cart and savoring all the tasty morsels sounds too innocent. I initially thought negating the violence would be best to keep the spotlight on the food. I now realize that the violence contributes to the overall food message quite drastically. Guards are constantly trying to thwart the initially large group from the back, picking them off one by one. These people would rather die a painful death by an axe to the head than live another day in their position. An important scene takes place in the middle of the train, right before a skirmish. A guard holds up a fish (this is right before they start making it to the food carts) and slits it down the middle with a knife. This sparks the realization that other food on the train, fresh food, exists and the guards waste a perfectly good fish to ridicule the hungry poor who only know protein blocks.

As the dwindling group treks farther and farther up the social ladder of the train, different non-food related hungers come into play. The first of these hungers reveals itself in the classroom cart: a hunger for knowledge. The lower class are kept in the back and have no way of learning new information. Humanity exists to learn and explore, but those in the back have no opportunities to grow in knowledge. The second hunger lies in the need for social interaction. Lavish parties and dances litter the front carts of the train. Members of the back never get time to sit down and fill their human need for social interaction; they are too worried about surviving another day. I cannot imagine a world where I am so hungry that my only real energy can be used to secure food. Many in the world experience a life centered around when and how they will get their food and I think Snowpiercer does a fantastic job at highlighting this sort of life. Right before the group, now only Curtis and a man named Minsu, makes it to the very front of the train, the engine room, Minsu reveals his hunger for freedom. A door to the outside stands next to the door to the engine room and Minsu chooses the former. Minsu would rather try his luck in the freezing wilderness than stay another minute on the train. Leaving the train seems like a death sentence in the portrayed dystopia. Freedom is more important to Minsu than life; control, to him, is worse than death.

The last two, and seemingly most important, hungers in the film lie in the human drive for religion and power. Now at first it seems as though these two subjects shouldn't be meshed together, but in Snowpiercer, they work hand in hand. My other posts have touched on religion and how science has taken over faith and religious practices in the future, but in Snowpiercer, traditional religion has come back in the form of scientific worship. The engine is seen as a god-like entity, fully venerated by the masses of the upper class. At one point a group of children are singing, "rumble, rumble! Rattle, rattle! It will never die!" I was quite shocked at the mentality the population has on the divinity of a piece of machinery. An even more shocking aspect is the man behind the engine, Wilford, whom Curtis meets with in the engine room. This man strives for endless power and uses the engine he built as a way to control the people on the train. Wilford can be compared to the wizard in The Wizard of Oz. Wilford hides behind a veil like the wizard and influences people based on his, and the engine's, power and might. His hunger for power and order is directly related to the upper class's hunger for religion as he preaches to the people and they listen to him with open hearts and ears. In the end, most of the passengers die in a huge crash, caused by Cutis sticking his arm in the engine to stop it. The order and inequality of Wilford's plan cannot represent a successful reality; the strive for total control will eventually lead to chaos.

Although Snowpiercer is upfront with its arguments (as in the symbolism isn't really hidden), it provides one thrill of a ride into the future. To answer the big question that I pose every week, I think that Snowpiercer seems like a definite possibility of the future state of the world. Class division has been around since the beginning of time and constantly stretches wider. In some instances, the world has already gotten to a state much like Snowpiercer. Stalinist Russia and Maoist China come to mind, topics I have studied in school, as chilling comparisons to the train dynamics. In these periods of government reign, Stalin, Mao, and the other upper-class citizens from each respective country lived in complete luxury. Most of the citizens, like those in the back of the train, were dying of starvation and not cared for in the slightest. Wilford, like Mao and Stalin, has the power to kill all of the lower class and do away with them.  

Why did Wilford let the poor people on in the first place you ask? The answer lies in the fact that Wilford desires power and he would have no power if everyone was on the same level. Those in the back entered the train as lower class citizens and, with the controlled environment of the train, will never achieve anything greater. In regards to Stalin and Mao, the rest of the world was able to help bring back normality. In the case of the Snowpiercer, Wilford rules the world: the train. The only way out is an uprising from the inside, eventually leading to Curtis stopping the engine which causes the train to leave the tracks. The symbolism lies less in the uprising and more in the idea that a human cannot control as much power as Wilford had. Wilford's civilization literally "went off the rails." The world cannot survive in a state of total control by one person; it will eventually crumble.  

Snowpiercer helped me think deeper on the class divide in modern society. I am extremely fortunate to be in my position, though I often take it for granted. Unlike a majority of people in the world, I don't have to worry about where my food is coming from, I have access to higher education, and I am set up with opportunities that will make me successful; I admit to being in the upper class, I cannot deny it. What many people in the upper class put to the back of their minds is the responsibility they have to help those who are less fortunate. Now, I'm not saying that a rich man should give a poor man half of his fortune, but the rich man should at least help the poor man obtain opportunities to become fiscally successful. While charities that give food and other material goods to the less fortunate are helpful, I believe programs that initiate opportunities to help those in need are much more beneficial. These programs can help people permanently get off their feet, instead of temporarily satisfying them. In order to be completely successful, a mix of both types of assistance must be present , as people will still need help with material goods as they are perusing other opportunities. A final comment I have touches on the racing minds of the wealthy. The rich live fast lives, always pinpointing and perusing the next agenda. If each of these people were to sit down for a short time every day and contemplate the state of world, I think many would gain new perspectives.

Maybe we, I am talking to you, my readers, must take life a kernel at a time, not stuffing our face and looking towards the next bag.

As my blog comes to a close, I am quite happy with my findings. By examining the inner meaning of both movies I had seen before and new movies I watched specifically for this project, I have grown in my knowledge of where the world is going. By looking at the dystopic potential futures of the world, I have shined light on the present epidemics of food production, food distribution, environmental destruction, class division, and many other issues. While watching and writing about these movies I admit to initially feeling angry and scared; I felt hopeless. Now, as I look back at all four blog posts as a whole, I feel oddly empowered. The empowerment stems from the fact that we can do something to change the fate of the world. Each and every problem depicted in these movies can be fixed. I cannot deny that I have had fun watching and writing these past couple weeks, but now is the time for action, now is the time to go prove these directors wrong.

Now is the time for change.

Works Cited

Snowpiercer. Dir. Bong John-ho. Perf. Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton. Radius-TWC, 2013. Amazon. Web. 27 Feb. 2015.

The Wizard of Oz. Dir. Norman Taurog. Perf. Judy Garland, Jack Haley. MGM, 1939. DVD.