movies you should watch: snowpiercer

So, yesterday it was hot. Disgustingly hot. Nightmarishly hot. Okay, it was around 90 degrees, but if you only have A/C in one room of your apartment, that’s kind of a nightmare. It was so gross out that I left my door open while I slept, and Sophie didn’t come and sleep with me. Bad times, man.

Anyway, Roommate and I decided to try and beat the heat for a little while by going to see a movie. The pickings were kind of slim–this time of year is made for tentpole movies, not Oscarbait, and you all know where my heart truly lies–but after some hemming and hawing, we decided on Snowpiercer. One of our friends had seen it recently, and I’d been curious about it ever since we got the graphic novel in at work.

Turns out, Snowpiercer is awesome.

Now, when I say it’s based on a graphic novel, don’t get visions of DC and Marvel in your head. This one is a French graphic novel first published in the 80s. After the world has frozen over due to mankind’s meddling, the only people left on Earth live on a train making endless circuits around the world–it’s too cold to actually get off. At the head of the train, life goes on like usual, but people who live in the tail end of the train are miserable and destitute.

Curtis has lived in the tail end of the train since the world ended, but he doesn’t want to stay there anymore. He thinks that, if they can make it all the way up to the train’s engine, they can change things. Maybe their meals won’t have to consist of wobbly, vile-tasting protein blocks; maybe they’ll have access to all the basic necessities they’ve been denied for 18 years. The head of the train ends up forcing his hand when they take away a pair of children to places unknown, and soon the tail of the train is pushing its way forward to the head. They’re helped along by a former prisoner and drug addict whose willingness to open the gates between the cars might have more purpose than getting his next hit.

This is the movie The Hunger Games wishes it was. And to show that I’m not just continuing my lifelong hate-on of The Hunger Games and every lazy piece of writing and worldbuilding it stands for (but consider this your daily reminder that THG is shit and Katniss is not a feminist heroine), I’ll say this as well: I think it’s the movie Bioshock Infinite thinks it is. The way this world is constructed, the way we’re slowly drawn into life on the train? Not to mention the entire school scene? Eat your heart out, Ken Levine. The storyline and unflinching willingness to draw blood where blood is needed? Suzanne Collins wishes she could write like this.

Snowpiercer is a dark, violent film (though thankfully, there’s very little blood and gore) about the nature of revolution and the importance of trying to right wrongs. There are enough twists that I don’t want to spoil things for you by talking about all the stuff Roommate and I did on the way home from the movie theater, but trust me that it’s a great film with some big ideas to play with. And if big ideas aren’t enough, it’s also really good just as an action movie. The fight scenes are well-choreographed, the tension is real, and the humor–and there’s a surprising amount of humor!–is funny enough that there was laughter in the theater even when the jokes were gallows-dark.

Oh, and the casting is pretty amazeballs.  Tilda Swinton is there!  So is John Hurt!  Octavia Butler!  And also the guy who played the God character in The Truman Show?  IDK, lots of great actors.  And I found myself surprisingly moved by Chris Evans, who plays Curtis.  His monologue at the end of the film had one kind of clunky line, but mostly, it was great to watch.

If you need to get out of a sweltering summer day, consider heading out to Snowpiercer. It’s hard to find a better escape than a dystopian society hurtling through a new Ice Age. 😀

movies you should watch: belle

So on Friday, I made a big deal about posting about Stuff I Like, and then I completely forgot about two of the things I was going to include!  Well, I’ll post one of them here, and then the other, I’ll be sure to include this Friday.  😀

Roommate and I both love period pieces.  Whether it’s swashbuckling adventures or biopics or love stories or comedies or Serious Movies About Serious Business, if it’s an interesting time period?  We’re willing to give it a try.  So when one of my coworkers told me about a movie she’d been wanting to see, Belle, the idea immediately appealed to both of us.

Movie poster for Belle (2014).

You may or may not know that Hollywood has a serious diversity problem.  If you’re not superfamiliar with the issues, Lee and Low Books had a great blog post about the Academy Awards and just how little progress has been made in showcasing the stories and skills of people of colour and, in the case of awards like Best Director, also women.  Belle looked to the Roommate and me like a step in a good direction.  Not only does it tell the story of a mixed-race woman in 18th-century England (a time and place often assumed to be lily-white, despite the fact that people of colour have existed in England, in various numbers, since Roman times), it was directed by Amma Asante, a British woman of Ghanian descent.  We wanted to vote in favour of a movie like Belle with our dollars, and also, we really wanted to see it, so we went last week, and it was amazing.

Belle is the story of Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsey, a real woman of African and English descent who was acknowledged by her father as legitimate and raised in the upper class of England in the 1700s.  (Because her Papa is a ship’s captain, she’s brought up by an aunt and uncle, with a white cousin her age, and comes to think of them as mother, father, and sister.  There’s also her maiden aunt, played by Lady Isobel from Downton Abbey, who is a lot of fun in this film.)  Just because her family loves her, however, doesn’t mean that everyone else in high society accepts her so easily–and just because her family loves her doesn’t mean that they don’t do douchey things to “save face” around company, like make her eat by herself.  (She’s too highborn to eat with the servants, but her presence among strangers at a formal dinner is more than her uncle can justify.  Dido thinks this is bullshit, and she’s completely right.)

There are two main stories happening in Belle.  One is the story of how Dido comes into her own and learns to navigate society on her own terms–all of society, not just the upper crust–while trying to figure out whether she ought to follow her heart or her head in terms of romance.  Does she choose a man who’s “right” by societal terms, a man who is her social equal and seems to find her pleasant enough?  Or does she choose a man of lower birth, whose ideals match her own and who is her intellectual equal?  You can probably guess the answer, but knowing what’s probably going to transpire doesn’t change just how well her decision is played out; Dido’s journey towards marriage is genuinely romantic, and her sister-cousin’s own pursuits are often as funny as anything Jane Austen came up with.

The second story, which is intimately tied up with the first one, is that of the Zong, a slave ship embroiled in a legal suit which Dido’s uncle is expected to decide.  (This happened in real life, too!  I mean, obviously the Zong stuff did, but it really was Dido’s uncle who presided over the case; that wasn’t just some cut-and-paste history for theme’s sake.)  His decision on the matter will say something more than just “was the Zong in the right?”, as far as everyone around him is concerned.  It’ll be an endorsement of or a detraction against slavery, then legal in Great Britain and an issue of serious debate.  Of course, Dido’s uncle is devoted to the law.  He wants his decision to be based on pure rationality of legal versus illegal, not on opinion, and the weight of the decision is clearly heavy on his shoulders.  Inevitably, Dido becomes entangled in the case, but it isn’t merely because of the colour of her skin–she chooses to educate herself on the subject, against her uncle’s will, and makes some hard decisions of her own about the value of truth over politics.

Amma Asante, director of Belle.

There’s more going on as well, but I’m just going to mention one other important thing.  The movie addresses the images of black people within 18th-century culture really well, focusing on the way Dido is surrounded by paintings of heroic whites and subservient blacks.  If she’s to believe what she sees, starting as a child and continuing through her life, people who look like her exist not for themselves but for the people who give them orders–who, at this point in time, literally own their bodies.  This theme culminates in a painting that challenges that status quo, and it’s superneat.

As you can imagine, Belle has a lot of plates to keep spinning, and it succeeds marvelously–in great part because Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who plays Dido, is a great actress.  I’m going to keep an eye out for her in the future, because I really liked her here.  This is a fantastic film, one I hope everyone will go out and see.  Because it’s also rated PG, I’m hoping it’s one that will have a long life within the middle- or high-school classroom.  There’s plenty to discuss related to this movie within a history class, and it is completely appropriate for the setting.