영화 『설국열차』와 생태적 상상력 ― 미래에 관한 마르크스적 보고서

Abstract

In this paper analyzed the ecological imagination and point of view in the movie 『Snowpiercer』(2013). The train, Snowpiercer, appeared after the ruin of the Earth, like a microcosm of today's capitalism and a figure of as ‘Small world’. After Cw-7 radiation, a New Ice Age came to the Earth and it was transformed into a block of ice. All resources and food, water, soil, and natural resources have dried up and a variety of races and classes were featured in the film. The hierarchies or social classes of the rooms at the tail section (Proletariat) and another sections (Bourgeois), namely seek the conquest of the water supply section and reflect Malthus's theory on racism and the Holocaust. In addition, Social Darwinism and Totalitarianism and the aspects of violence by ecological fascism in this movie shows a Post-Apocalypse of the future. For example, Wilford's final words of the movie are similar to the tragedy of commons theory by Garret Hardin, especially his intentional population reduction, murder, and genocide reflect (Neo-)malthusianism. These competitive exclusion principles include the zero population growth and birth control of Paul Ehrlich. Extreme political ecology, namely Ecofascism, that strive to restore the ecological imbalance can rule out human life. Snowpiercer functions as a metaphor like ‘Noah's Ark’ of Bible, in the sense that it shows the last competitive relationship between the survivors of human kind. However, we can see ‘Autopurification’ in its own nature from polar bears, Tommy, and Jona. The last scene of the movie represents a new start for the human beings of the future. In conclusion, this movie shows the interaction between humans and nature, especially technology and the nature of the ecological way forward. Karl Marx emphasized the relationship of humans and the Earth as ‘Stoffwechsel zwischen Mensch und Erde’, specifically, ‘the conduction of Humanism in nature’(‘der durchgeführte Humanismus der Natur’) and ‘the naturalistic nature of man’(‘der durchgeführte Naturalismus des Menschen’).