To understand why the Snowpiercer series , broadcast little by little every Monday in France on Netflix since the end of May, is worth a look, we must remember where it comes from. From a French comic strip, first, Le Transperceneige, published in the 1980s. The story is a dystopia: in the distant future at the time of the comic book's release (much closer now), climate change has irreparably worsened. Scientists called to the rescue to cool the Earth miss their mark and plunge it into an icy cold that threatens the survival of the human species. The only lifeline will come from a modern arch, a train of 1,001 cars that can accommodate 3,000 souls. Driving continuously around the planet, self-sufficient, the machine was built by a wealthy industrialist, Wilford, who is also the pilot and chief.
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A very linear film ...
But the series also comes from a film, released in 2013, the first foray of Korean director Bong Joon-Ho on the side of Hollywood, six years before the immense success of his Parasite . The filmmaker had then extracted the substantial marrow from the comic strip: the train actually reproduces the class inequalities of real life, with luxurious first-class wagons at the front, 2nd and 3rd industrial classes in the middle and " downgraded, "or" classless, "at the back of the train. The latter, who boarded clandestinely for want of enough money to pay for a ticket, live crammed in misery.
The film focused on their revolt with a very linear construction: the lousy rebels advanced from one wagon to another as we pass the levels of a video game, gradually discovering the different universes of the Transperceneige while gleaning the dignity that had been taken away from them for a long time. Bong Joon-Ho has since proven , with Parasite , that the subject of class struggle is his favorite playground.
... and a series that prefers back and forth
On Netflix, Snowpiercer is sold as an adaptation of the film, not of the comic strip. And we find Bong Joon-Ho as executive producer, which did not guarantee anything in terms of quality as this title tends to be honorary (and very lucrative) more than to really commit to a project of the platform. But we should not expect that the 2-hour film ends up here diluted in 10 episodes. The series takes advantage of its format to make radically different script choices.
So it doesn't all start with a revolt, but with an investigation: a corpse being found in the head wagons, we come to find Layton, a "classless" who happens to be also the only one to have been a real investigator in the world before, to find the culprit. The discovery of the train is no longer done linearly but with incessant back and forth between the front and the tail of the train. If the whole is sometimes too smooth, the police aspect of the series remains sufficiently controlled to catch the viewer.
Appropriate all the specifics of the serial format
Above all, Snowpiercer in serial format takes advantage of its length to linger on the sets, already impressive in the film and which are here as well, as well as the characters. Particularly that of the head concierge of the train, Mélanie Cavill, Wilford's right-hand man and true spokesperson for his employer while the latter remains (at least we believe at the beginning of the story) trapped in the locomotive. Actress Jennifer Connelly takes over the role played by Tilda Swinton in the film by Bong Joon-Ho in the series and, if she does not manage to forget the incredible performance of her sister, comes out with honors. His character, much more important on Netflix than on the big screen, makes it possible to tackle in particular the theme of the difficulty of the exercise of power, almost absent from the film.
And this is the great success of this serial version of Snowpiercer : proving by example that the format cannot, must not be content to be a longer film, but fully appropriate all its specifics to constitute a work in its own right.