“Society
of the Snow” or “La sociedad de la nieve” in Spanish, is the true story of the 1972
Andes flight disaster which I know nothing about except for that one photo I
have seen somewhere on the internet of a bunch of men in multiple layers of outerwear
chilling (quite literally) near a plane wreckage. This tragic story follows a
Uruguayan rugby team on flight to Chile for a match with some of their good
friends onboard the Air Force Flight 571 to share what should have been a joyous
work-cation turned deadly disaster.
The
plane was split in half by a mountain, separating the front and back where Numa
Turcatti (Enzo Roldán) witnessed his friend flew out of the plane screaming to
his name. Director JA Bayona depicted the crash in the most devastating, most
painful, gnarliest way possible, and one can only imagine how it really happened.
For the longest time, we follow Numa’s POV of this unfortunate survival but as
the movie goes on, you come to realise that he is not the lead, it is this surviving
group. From 27 surviving passengers, the number slowly decreases as they hold
on to extreme weather (minus 86 degrees when at night) and lack of food
supplies which then resorted to the unthinkable. If that was not enough, at a
point, they were buried in an avalanche for four fucking days desperately trying
to surface!
Every
misfortune they face, every decision they make to survive; as you see this
happening on screen in the comfort of your home, the movie forces you to wonder:
what would you do in this situation? Can you even survive? To survive in such
an unliveable environment, our primal instincts would easily clash with our
faith and principle, and the movie tests that especially when it comes to the
group’s divide regarding how they should feed themselves.
You
would not think like this if the actors here were not convincing. Fortunately
for this movie’s benefit, the performances from all actors were impressive.
What was even more impressive was the fact that most of the actors portraying
these real-life characters are unknown Uruguayans and Argentines newcomers. Their
emotional expressions and physical performances felt very real, you would have
thought they experienced the tragedy firsthand.
JA
Bayona proves that he is indeed a director who understands tragic histories and
portrays that into a visual medium for all of us to go through. Whether it be
the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in his 2012 movie “The Impossible” or the 1972
Andes flight disaster in “Society of the Snow”, he managed to capture the
horrors of a disaster and its aftermath while challenging the audience with
questions of faith, luck, humanity, and principle. While “The Impossible” hit
closer to home (I had family in Aceh), “Society of the Snow” is a true miracle story
I will never forget.
[5/5]
“Society
of the Snow” is now streaming on Netflix.
