Society of the Snow Review: Originally titled, La sociedad de la nieve, the Netflix Spanish captures the plot of a survival thriller based on the real-life events associated with the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 that crashed in the Andes mountains in 1972.
Although the film recounts the true repercussions felt by the then survivors, lending the whole incident the titles – Andes flight disaster and Miracle of the Andes, the film first looks upon Pablo Vierci’s book of the same name to adapt the dire and gut-wrenching background and accident. Before releasing on Netflix on January 4, 2024, the film, directed by JA Bayona, was screened at the 80th Venice International Film Festival and received its theatrical premiere in some countries in December 2023.
Starring Enzo Vogrincic Roldán as Numa Turcatti, Matías Recalt as Roberto Canessa, Agustín Pardella as Nando Parrado, Tomas Wolf as Gustavo Zerbino, Diego Vegezzi as Marcelo Pérez del Castillo, Esteban Kukuriczka as Adolfo and others, the movie was filmed at a few locations, including the actual crash site.
-No Spoilers-
Society of the Snow Review
There have been a plethora of movies with such grave tragedies a their heart, much like there have been plenty of headlines addressing these very real disastrous catastrophes. The latest Netflix is set in the extremely cold environs, just as cold as what befalls a group of passengers, including a young team of rugby players, following a plane crash, that too in the remote surroundings of Andes.
The next expected turn obviously gets the survivors to pull themselves up and join forces with each other, given the meagre resources at hand on crash landing in such a place that sees nothing for miles on end except the blinding sheets of snow. Their journey through it all calls for putting their faith and resilience to test, as nothing comes to their aid and even the rescue teams deployed to bring them in fail to locate them.
The first few minutes of the film work out a normal picture of miscellaneous passengers who have no one but each other for the next few hours onboard this flight. Unfortunately, they’re left with no choice but to extend this alliance for the sake of having a sense of support, even if a feeble one, and their survival.
When the crash actually hits the people, the claustrophobic and deadly implications of this controlled and choreographed accident on the screen leaps off the camera despite it being visualised through the 2D film format. Though not too long, the few minutes of that deadly mishap are enough to scare the audience sitting on the other side of the story. The fear is exacerbated knowing the fact that this is based on true events.
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Society of the Snow has been written for screen by Bayona himself alongside Bernat Vilaplana, Jaime Marques and Nicolás Casariego, with Pedro Luque helming the cinematography, and the film attains its fearsome peak in the few initial moments. The devastating blow, though felt on the other side of the screen, reverberates to the viewer’s side, making the dreadful implications of it palpable in the air, especially with the sound of every bone breaking or people being left behind, while the helpless and hopeless idea that the other passengers still left breathing can’t do anything for the others.
As the audience, you too can sense that a simple act of selflessness in such a situation would result in something reckless, and it’s all felt across the fourth wall despite it all falling to pieces within seconds. The visually adept and crafty ways in which the whole thing is put together is indeed praiseworthy, yet despite that sense of visual grandeur in capturing the breathless action bits, the humane gravitas and realism are foregrounded as well.
Unlike certain cliches and sensationalism that tagged along with the visual narrative of the Anna Castilllo starrer 2023 Netflix film, Nowhere, fortunately Bayona’s directorial doesn’t fall into that trap and maintains the authentic credibility (even if painful to watch on many accounts) of the cataclysmic shock that forever changed the trajectory of the survivors’ lives.
Bayona touchingly brings to life the extreme conditions faced by the survivors until even most of them gradually submit to their fate. All of the following deaths of these passengers are immortalised by the writers as each of these people’s names comes up when the fateful moment strikes. In that way, the movie doesn’t so much rely on a single person and their emergence as the protagonist; it rather becomes all of their story to tell. The latter bits of the film also take on an epistolary or diary format, and when that personal touch meets the brutal visualisation of the entire experience, not only is the result a humanist narrative, but also an existential one.
Society of the Snow Spanish Movie: Final Thoughts
As is known, this tragedy has found space in the mainstream time and again, but the way Bayona helms it with so much sensitivity for the humane experience, for all those who survived or not, this adaptation is clearly an affecting one. Moreover, the high-scale production value goes a long way in realising that vision to the best of its abilities, while also filling the viewer up with dread, but also high regard for human resilience.
Having an ensemble of newcomers also helps the film make its case, as the attention towards either of them doesn’t outweigh the other. The cast’s dedication in the final second half is reflected visually just as much as it is emotionally, and the efforts put into decking them up with make-up for making their injuries seem real pay of well.
Society of the Snow movie is now streaming on Netflix.
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