The Cinematheque

In Person: Jean-Marc Rochette

“The relentless, politically provocative and visually spectacular Snowpiercer [is] the best action film of [the year], and probably the best film, period.”

Andrew O’Hehir, Salon

Korean auteur Bong Joon Ho swung for the fences with his English-language debut. A highly allegorical, high-concept sci-fi epic with an A‑team ensemble and one of South Korea’s biggest-ever budgets, Snowpiercer was an all-chips-in gamble that astonishingly paid off, garnering acclaim, big box-office gains, and a seat for Bong at the Netflix table for follow-up Okja. The dystopian spectacular, set in 2031, concerns the last survivors of a human-caused cataclysmic event that has plunged Earth into a second ice age. The population now exists aboard a massive self-sustaining train, segregated by a caste system with the poorest at the back, the 1% at the front. An uprising led by tail-passenger Curtis (Chris Evans) sets off a bloody car-by-car crusade to reach the engineer (Ed Harris), architect of this inequitable world order. Bong’s steampunk social-class parable is based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige, also blueprint for the still-running television adaptation.

French artist Jean-Marc Rochette, co-creator and illustrator of the multi-volume Le Transperceneige graphic novel series, will join us in person to discuss his work and the Bong Joon Ho film.

“This might be the best pure science-fiction film since Children of Men … A visionary, thrilling work [and] a crystallization of Bong’s status as one of our most exciting filmmakers.”

Oliver Lyttelton, IndieWire

“Snowpiercer has been brought to the screen with the kind of solid narrative craftsmanship, carefully drawn characters, and—above all—respect for the audience’s intelligence rarely encountered in high-concept genre cinema.”

Scott Foundas, Variety