Critic’s choice

‘Life Itself,’ ‘Snowpiercer’ lead Indie Film Series

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In “Life Itself,” the documentary about late Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert, one of his peers brags that the Pulitzer Prize-winner could crank out a well-thoughtout review in half an hour. This piece, dear reader, took significantly longer than that, but if Ebert had lived long enough to review the visionary thriller “Snowpiercer” — and been brazen enough to combine it with an analysis of his own film — I’d be willing to bet it wouldn’t have been one of his quickies. Both films play this month at Studio C! as part of the Indie Film Series.

It’s somewhat intimidating to review “Life Itself,” about a man synonymous with contemplative film critiques, so let’s start with “Snowpiercer.” (Procrastination, after all, is a hallmark of being a writer.) South Korean filmmaker Jooh-hoo Bong (“The Host”) used the source material, a French graphic novel, as a jumping off point to craft a razor-sharp allegory of societal hierarchy and infused it with Gnostic themes that, unless you’re a religious studies major, may require a little post-viewing unpacking.

In fact, it’s almost better to unhitch the film entirely from the real world and view “Snowpiercer” as a strictly metaphorical film about classism and cultural imperialism as seen through a dystopian sci fi lens — think David Lynch’s “Dune” packed onto a train and relegated to the opposite end of the color palate.

In the near future, scientists attempting to reverse global warming accidentally send the planet plummeting into a global ice age that wipes out all life. A locomotive powered by a perpetual motion engine — our first clue that Bong intended the movie to be a pure flight of fancy — lugs the final remnants of humanity around in an unending loop circumscribing the Americas, Eurasia and Africa. Those in the caboose live squalid existences, subsiding on “protein bars” (better if you don’t know what they’re really made of) manufactured farther up the train. Nearer the locomotive lives a society of hedonists and brainwashed sheeple: Front cars good, back cars baaaaaad.

The film follows a bloody uprising by the rear passengers, led by Curtis (Chris Evans, “Captain America: The Winter Solider”). References to various historical revolutions blend with unfamiliar motifs and abstruse visuals (why are those storm troopers dipping their hatchets into the guts of a freshly sliced carp?) that I was only able to chalk up to Eastern filmmaking. Which also accounts for the intense violence. Not since “Braveheart” has an otherwise self-serious picture included flourishes such as the dull wet “schlup” of an ax plunging into a human cheekbone. That said, “Snowpiercer” is an eminently satisfying original work that will have a lasting effect on the way action can be incorporated into storytelling.

Ebert once said the violence that had overtaken mainstream entertainment was lazy, but I’d like to think he’d appreciate Bong’s use of it. Ebert was, after all, the first champion of a ferocious young filmmaker named Martin Scorsese. He thumbs-upped the blood-spattered “Scarface” over his sparring partner Gene Siskel, who found the film “boring”; this heated exchange is one of many archived moments in “Life Itself,” which loosely follows Ebert’s eponymous 2011 memoir.

As a sound-alike narrator reads excerpts from the book, documentarian Steve James (“Hoop Dreams”) follows Ebert as he begins his final battery of hospital visits in the months leading up to his death at age 70 last year. The film tracks his life, from growing up about two hours outside Chicago through his college years where he proved himself to be a standout journalist and his years as a thoughtful film reviewer at the only paper he ever worked for.

Ebert entered the pop culture landscape as the portlier half of “Siskel & Ebert & the Movies,” making film criticism a mainstream affair, albeit a black and white one — how can one simply reduce a work of art to a yay or nay? But “Life Itself” also ventures into race relations, journalistic integrity and the evolution of film. A bold scope indeed, but the film stays on track to present a well-rounded portrait of a man who saw movies as an extension of existence, and the only art form to truly instill the elusive quality of empathy.

And so, in the words of Ebert, I conclude this two-film evaluation thus: “Two thumbs way up.”

“Life Itself” and “Snowpiercer”

Indie Film Series Studio C! Meridian Mall 1999 Central Park Drive, Okemos. (517) 393 -7469, celebrationcinema.com/studio

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