The numbering of wagons begins with the tail of the train In a supertrain with a perpetual motion machine, which has been dissecting snowy expanses in the past of the boiling life of our planet for 17 years, another uprising is brewing. The inhabitants of the last carriages are dissatisfied with the injustice on the part of the powerful in the head of the train and are waiting for an opportunity to break through to the engine - the previous rebels have not yet succeeded.
The ram of the uprising becomes a tightly built Curtis, the seriousness of whose intentions tells the viewer that this guy will still get to the engine. As befits a hero who is preparing for exploits, next to him is a faithful friend (Edgar), a wise elder mentor (Gilliam) and the best expert (Namgun Minsu). Only a faithful companion of life is not enough for the completeness of the heroic cliché script. So a significant part of the screen time of the viewer is waiting for a rich and moderately cruel action story, promotion with combat from car to car.
Thanks to the action, the social component of the film - the division of the last remnants of humanity into closed castes-cars - acts more as the foundation, the background of the plot, rather than its engine. Of course, there is an emphasis on social inequality. In Minister Mason, her fascist views and even in her appearance, you will surely recognize someone from your ruling elite. At the same time, you will see juvenile justice in action and a striking contrast in the clothes, living conditions and food of the more “successful” passengers and those who were placed in the last carriages. But Curtis’s heroic journey to train driver and owner Wilford is not seen as a redesign of the system, because he has no idea how the system works. At first, he just wants to get to the engine and replace the villain Wilford with a fair Gilliam.
But moving forward, Curtis learns. As his comrades die, his image becomes more convex and tragic - he accepts responsibility for the deaths of those who trusted him, and in the end, before entering the locomotive, he is not a lone hero. In him, Wilford, whether he realizes it or not, will meet not only Curtis, but everyone who walked with him, everyone who ever lived in those last carriages. This meeting is similar to Neo’s conversation with the Architect in the third part of The Matrix. It also comes down to choosing between two doors. And the right door will also help you choose love for a particular person. A love which is unknown to either the Architect or Wilford, these creators of closed systems within which man as an infinite being will never be fully human.
Are social revolutions made by love? It's not in the head of the train. There is nothing but consumption. Which tells you how the system works, like returning to child slave labor. Bong Jun-ho not only diagnoses post-capitalism, but also suggests a solution – it is in our, I believe, hot hearts. Systems that imagine themselves the end of the story with a perpetual motion machine, right now are decomposing and waiting for their gravediggers from the last car.
8 out of 10
Original