Departing the Carrasco International Airport on October 12, 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 with the Old Christians Club Rugy Team on board, would not make its final destination of Santiago, Chile.  Incorrectly fearing that the plane had overshot its turning point, the pilot attempted to correct his course but instead, he accidentally led the plane into the peaks of the Andes Mountains.  Because the mountains were already snow-covered for the season, the air search was unsuccessful in finding the plane and efforts were suspended until the thaw.  Meanwhile, the survivors of the crash huddled together through the biting wind and impossibly cold temperatures as they laid plans to rescue themselves from this dire situation. 

Society of the Snow, originally La sociedad de la nieve, is the latest disaster drama from writer/director J. A. Bayona.  The Spanish-language Netflix film premiered out of competition at the Venice Film Festival where it picked up considerable praise and became Spain’s submission for International Feature at the 96th Academy Awards.  Running 144 minutes, the survival drama wastes little time in setting that stage which makes for an exciting opening, but this also means the large ensemble cast of mostly first-time actors must do a lot of character-building once stranded as we spend very little time with them before boarding this fateful flight.   

Bayona’s film is a punishing one, appropriate given the subject matter, and he is not at all interested in holding the audience’s hand through this be it in the form of the film or by blunting the material.  In the chaos of it all, Pedro Luque’s probing and observatory lens is constantly oscillating across the faces of the stranded as they begin to comprehend the horrible situation in which they have found themselves.  For what is largely a single location shoot, shrunk down even more to be the broken-off fuselage of the stranded Fairchild FH-227D, and with either a blinding white or frigid dark color palate to choose from, Society of the Snow is shot in such a way that is able to use that stark black and white contrast in addition to the mountainous vistas to create a rich and vibrant environment for this saga of perseverance to unfold. There is a life in the image, against all odds, which matches the life that the survivors bring to an environment where life should be all but impossible.

Factually, of the 45 passengers on board, there were 33 survivors of the crash.  Simply put, far too many people to expect audiences to keep track of, so the script wisely begins to parcel out responsibilities to a handful of the survivors so that we can begin to anchor ourselves into the narrative.  Marcelo (Diego Vegezzi) presents himself as a defacto leader and Daniel (Francisco Romero) has knowledge of the area, but as the situation grows more dire, their expertise gives way to Numa’s (Enzo Vogrincic) more emotional account of what transpires, and then finally it is Nando (Agustín Pardella) and Roberto (Matías Recalt) who guide the narrative to its close.  What is most impressive is just how cohesive the unit remains across the runtime, and while tensions most likely did flare up on that cold and lonely mountain, as a story it is notable how little true interpersonal conflict is present.  Society of the Snow is almost uniformly a man-against-nature story, but not without elements of man against himself, and in that way it becomes strangely inspiring so the more horrific elements are seen as the challenges they are. 

One of the biggest emotional hurdles for the survivors to cross is as their food dwindles and they come to the horrifying realization that in order to survive, they will need to cannibalize their dead.  Of all the physical challenges that the film does an exceptional job at conveying, it is this internal one that will haunt audiences as they come to the slow agreement with the characters that there is only one option for them to take.  Here, Bayona’s script – and it should be noted that Bernat Vilaplana, Jaime Marques, and Nicolás Casariego share a screenwriting credit, too – brings in a philosophical challenge in a way that does not feel out of place with the overall tone of the film.  There are certain things that are so far removed from our baseline comfort zone, something such as cannibalism, that when initially presented on screen, it may elicit a nervous laughter from the audience, and in a film such as this, any unintentional laughter will wreck the immersion and create an easy off-ramp for those looking for reprieve.  Rather, the survivors have a very personal conversation and they weigh the various views of each other with appropriate weight helping some of the more devout of the group lean into accepting the inevitable new fact of their survival.  Bayona then takes a second risk in this vital part of the story by showing the act, and while the butchering is framed and shot so it can stay just out of focus, there are multiple instances where we see the survivors eating and there is a feeling of dread that washes over us in solidarity with them. 

In the third act of the film, Nando and Roberto come to the conclusion that there is no help coming and that they will need to foster their own rescue.  It is not that Society of the Snow lacked excitement until this point, but the added momentum and the new terror of not being bunkered down in the fuselage injects a certain energy into the final arc.  The new terrain is still beautifully shot, and what makes the film so unique is how it balances the smaller victories, many of which come into play in the home stretch.  Because we get to celebrate with the survivors, like when they get the battery hooked up, the film avoids being just a parade or trauma so that when the battery causes a surge and ultimately destroys the radio, we feel gutted with them instead of just sad that their plan fell through.  We have that added investment that really sinks its hooks into us from the comfort of our sofas. 

Bayona crafts a very powerful film based on an incredible true story, and though some of the facts are a little loose, not in their representation but in their depth, it is a hard-hitting emotional account of what it may have been like up there, stranded on a mountain.  It is not so much interested in delivering a distillation of information, though the daily listing of passengers and ages when they passed away do help mark time, rather, the film is seeking to show a struggle and the community – or, if we may be so on-the-nose, the society – that it takes to survive and remain human even in the most inhumane and uninhabitable environments.  There is an inherent thrill and a sense of awe around the story that 16 people were able to survive with so few resources for 72 days because they put aside their differences and worked together for a common goal.  Communities removed and isolated are a hotbed of drama where even the smallest of actions can be extrapolated out to how the larger community operates, and while oftentimes these stories, most famously Lord of the Flies, are examinations of the germs of violence, Society of the Snow shows what happens when a group of people, even a small group, come together and work for a common good. In a divided time as we find ourselves today and with a fraught election cycle gearing up for audiences in the United States and while war rages on across the world, Bayona’s film serves as a potent reminder that we are all human and under that umbrella of species which we share, we must come together and work towards our own survival.