Duality of the Railways: Popular Culture Representations of 'The Train' in Bong Joon-Ho's Snowpiercer and Yeon Sang-Ho's

International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology Vol. 29, No. 9s, (2020), pp. 3989 - 3992

Duality of the Railways: Popular Culture Representations of ‘the Train’ in Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer and Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan

Meera Krishnadas Research Scholar Department of English and Languages, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kochi Campus, India

Dr. Meera B. Assistant Professor Department of English and Languages, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kochi Campus, India

Abstract

Railways have always held the attention of the world from the very first day of its inception. This technological marvel was seen with wonder, fear, and suspicion. They have often proved themselves to be synonymous with technology serving as symbols, images, and metaphors to denote a technological world. This imagery has often brought out a duality, one of both life and death. They act as guardians offering safe passage and as vehicles of doom carrying one to their death. The paper examines this binary of technology as both saviours and villains in popular culture adaptations from South Korean auteurs - Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer(2013)and Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan(2016) arguing that Durkheim’s theory of Collective effervescence operates in the trains which act as a microcosm of the world when a crisis strikes.

Keywords: Railway literature, Snowpiercer, Technology

Depictions of a dystopian world in popular culturehave almost always depicted technology as symbols of doom. The giant virtual screens in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), the serpentine ducts in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985) and the fuel-guzzling monster vehicles in George Miller’s Mad Max franchise all showed technology as an enabler of tyranny. One of the most popular TV shows today, the Netflix science fiction anthology series Black Mirror, also examines unexpected consequences of technology. Technology is not necessarily seen as a threat but as a tool to expose men’s larger flaws. Charlie Brooker, the creator of the show notes that “Technology is never the villain in the show, it’s about human failings and human messes.” (N’Duka: 2016) Technology is often used to depict a kind of dystopia, an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post- apocalyptic.

The great debate of ‘man vs. nature’ has now paved way for ‘technology vs nature’ after the industrial revolution. By products of the industrial world are now seen as diametrically opposite the pristine, unadulterated countryside. Art has always been a reflection of society and cannot be viewed in isolation. A careful examination of the different artistic mediums will provide a mirror to the society’s own mindsets and this bridge can go a long way in understanding the human psyche. No field can survive by itself and this is precisely the reason why interdisciplinary research is the need of the hour. Any form of art like literature or movies stare at the society like a mirror exposing its demons, or glorifying the good. Thus, a bridge between science and art paves the way for a holistic world merging human fears and 3989 ISSN: 2005-4238 IJAST Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology Vol. 29, No. 9s, (2020), pp. 3989 - 3992 aspirations with technological marvels. The paper calls attention to two depictions of railways, the most common image to mark the industrial world, both from the last decade.Snowpiercer by the Oscar winning director Bong Joon-ho and Train to Busan by his compatriot Yeon Sang-ho.

Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer presents to us a microcosm of the world inside a train.“In a world decimated by the effects of climate change, amidst the snow of the now frozen world, there remains one source of refuge for humanity: Wilford’s train.” (Wool:2014)In a future where the outside world is ensconced in ice, the last humans, representing a hierarchy of lost society, travel on a train that never stops, but their relative peace is unsettled when the train's poor become disgruntled. The train itself becomes an allegory of the larger world while each compartment represents different class structures. The head contains the engines and then the first class passengers, the elite upper strata of the society. The poorer sections who got on without a ticket are at the tail end. “Humanity's last remnants reside on the train—the well-to-do people living in comfort in the head cars with the poor and downtrodden masses stuck in back in cramped quarters and forced to subsist on protein bars.” (Sobczynski:2014)

The constant comparison of this train to an ecosystem where it is extremely important to maintain balance is a constant motif throughout the film. “Adapted from a French graphic novel about global warming, a new Ice Age and an arklike train that carries survivors on an endless loop like a circumnavigating monorail, Snowpiercer also is an Orwellian allegory about wealth disparity and political inequality that, in post-Occupy times, occasionally lights up with torch-and-pitchfork verve.” (Hornaday: 2014)

The focus on technology is an overarching theme throughout the movie. The whole world has frozen to death and this train remains a sole survivor because of its advanced technology that can survive on its own. It converts the snow into water, it has a self sustaining ecosystem where the life on the train is always kept at check. This parallel that is drawn between the world and a machine is crucial as in the end the machine fails them. The final scene where the two passengers step out into the vast open snow is seen with hope – humans are finally free from the clutches of a technological loop.

The train, a representative of technology, presents a duality of life and death - it becomes a saviour and a captor at the same time. It saves the people from freezing to death due to global warming;on the other hand, it holds them prisoners in the same moving space. “Though it does not begin that way, the positive outlook of the Snowpiercer hinges on a very similar notion about the necessity of transforming the human element into something that can live in a post-apocalyptic world.”( Jones:2020)

Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan focuses on a zombie-infested South Korea where the passengers of a train traveling from Seoul to Busan are the among the few who are cocooned from the catastrophe happening outside. This serenity of the train as a sacred canopy becomes marred when one of the zombies manages to enter the train and starts infecting other patients.

Where Busan differs from Snowpiercer is what happens thereafter. The latter is a product of a global disaster that had come and gone – the world had frozen, there was nothing or nobody to live for in the outside world and the passengers of the train knew that they had definitively survived an apocalyptic threat. This knowledge of having weathered the storm led to the most primal instincts of survival being replaced by other, more tertiary needs such as power and comfort. As Abraham Maslow details in his “hierarchy of needs” (“A theory of human, motivation, Psychological Review, 1943), the physiological and safety needs form the cornerstone of human existence. These are then followed by psychological and self-fulfillment needs. Similarly in Snowpiercer, the passing of the threat lead to the more privileged passengers to exercise their heft, leading to a fascistic, hegemonical world where the “front” of the train enjoyed the comfort, luxury and pride of place, while the “tail” of the train had to live in utter poverty, having to do the most menial of tasks to survive. The train, thus, becomes a motif of everything that is wrong with capitalism, with the rich enjoying the benefits at the expense of the poor.

Train to Busan on the other hand, is set in the midst of a crisis and not post one, unlike Snowpiercer. The passengers realize that they need each other’s help to thwart the threat of the outsiders, the zombies, and most of them are ready to do so. Class differences are absent in the midst of the crisis, since the threat did not differentiate between class – it was an equal threat to everyone, mirroring today’s post-COVID world. This brings in to effect what Emile Durkheim calls the “collective effervescence” effect.

According to Durkheim (1912) ,“a community or society may at times come together and simultaneously communicate the same thought and participate in the same action. Such an event then causes collective effervescence which excites individuals and serves to unify the group.”Durkheim argues that the universal religious dichotomy of profane and sacred results from the lives of these tribe members: most of their life is spent performing menial tasks such as hunting and gathering. These tasks are profane. The rare occasions on which the entire tribe gathers together become sacred, and the high energy level associated with these events gets directed onto physical objects or people which also become sacred.

Collective effervescence is visible during all crises that affect human beings – everyday life and its menial tasks become profane, whereas any deed in service of the community becomes sacred. Let us examine the COVID-19 crisis for instance. Jogging in the park, riding a bicycle, going out to visit a friend – all simple, everyday occurrences – were seen as profane. People were expected to follow and adhered to the larger calling of self-isolation, which was considered sacred. This saw high energy levels to play one’s role in combating the pandemic, especially in the early days of COVID-induced lockdown. This effect of collective effervescence is visible in Train to Busan as well – the protagonist’s self-serving, business-like attitude is considered profane and the community spirit of giving a hand and helping others out becomes sacred.

Passengers readily help each other from the threat of the zombies and find solace in each other’s company – this dichotomy is frequently portrayed through the doors and windows of the train, which have the surviving humans on one side, and the existential threat of the zombies on the other. Here, the windows and doors of the train become powerful symbols of human survival and the train is a force of good – no matter how dangerous the situation is outside, the walls of the train enclose the passengers in a protective blanket of safety (provided that they are ready to help each other). These doors between compartments act as a start contrast as opposed to the doors of Snowpiercer which divides people instead of uniting them. This begs a larger, more thought-provoking question – would the passengers of Busan also behaved like those of Snowpiercer had the threat of zombies passed? Would other needs such as power, comfort and greed taken over in the absence of the primal need of survival?

The passengers of the film displayed unity because the situation demanded so - the zombies could attack anyone – whereas the train in Snowpiercer served as a reinforcer of discriminatory social systems, the train in Busan served as an equalizer. “The film captures how panic can make monsters of us all, and it is our responsibility to overcome that base instinct in times of crisis.” (Tallerico:2016). Would the passengers have been so helpful to each other in a world where they could survive without unity?Whereas Snowpiercer was a post-apocalyptic product of disaster which man had reshaped into a world of inequality, the train in Busan is a pre-apocalyptic product of togetherness, which man was striving to keep alive by coming together with his fellow man.

“Beyond their political motivations, both Snowpiercer and Train to Busan use the interior spaces of trains to dynamic effect, exploration new stylistic avenues within their claustrophobic confines.” (Conran: 2016) The space gave the creators a multidimensional layer to narrate their story. The predetermined journey forming the perpetual loop made trains the perfect foundations as they offered the power of temporality as the characters were forced to remain in this space for a certain amount of time.

References:

1. Conran, Pierce. (2016, Oct 2) ‘Korean cinema takes to the rails’ 2. Durkheim, Émile. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, (1912, English translation by Joseph Swain: 1915) The Free Press, 1965 3. Hornaday, Anne. (2014, July 1) ‘Snowpiercer’ movie review: All aboard a cold train to nowhere. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/movies/snowpiercer-movie- review-all-aboard-a-cold-train-to-nowhere/2014/07/01/69b9d924-012a-11e4-8fd0- 3a663dfa68ac_story.html 4. Jones, Clint. (2020) Apocalyptic Ecology in the Graphic Novel: Life and the Environment After Societal Collapse. McFarland. 5. N’Duka, A. (2016, July 27) ‘Black Mirror’ Reflects on Technology and the Modern Workd, but Not david Cameron, Creators Say – TCA Deadline. 6. Sobczynski, Peter. (2014, July 27) ‘Snowpiercer Review”. Rogerebert.comhttps://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/snowpiercer-2014 7. Tallerico, Brian (2016, July 22). ‘Train to Busan Review’ Rogerebert.com 8. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/train-to-busan-2016 9. Wool, Lina. (2014) “Snowpiercer: A Metaphor of our Broken Society”. Houghton Star. https://www.houghtonstar.com/2014/10/10/snowpiercer/