Society of the Snow

Society of the Snow is a recent depiction of the 1972 plane crash involving an Uruguayan rugby team and their subsequent fight for survival in the snow-ridden Andes mountains of South America. Their story was truly harrowing, and this was incredibly hard to watch at times, as the young men are forced to do horrible things in order to survive.

I had heard of this plane crash before – but even so, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I was going in as blind as I could have. I didn’t even know it was a Spanish language film. I’m glad I didn’t read the Wikipedia summary in advance.

It is shot very well, and it is paced perfectly – even at an almost two and a half hour runtime. The actors, most of which were acting for the first time, did a very good job with their performances.

Perhaps what this film does best is make you feel the stakes on both a physical and emotional perspective. You feel these character’s pain when they are crushed under the weight of an avalanche, or when they have to make impossible decisions about how to find food when there is none. You feel the heartbreak when they lose a friend, cousin, or brother. The film sets up their relationships quickly, and makes you watch as they are torn apart.

14 of the 16 survivors are still alive today, and contributed to the film by giving a combined 100 hours of interviews to the filmmakers to help the film be as authentic and realistic as possible. After seeing the film, they apparently were very happy with how the events were portrayed. The director, J.A. Bayona, wanted the film to feel like a documentary. In my opinion, he achieved that goal – not in how the film was shot, but in how the story was told.

I think this was a very good film and probably will be in contention for a few Oscars. I can’t recommend this one to anyone unless you are comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. Some scenes are just brutal, but impossible to look away from. I’d give this film a seven out of ten, only because the subject matter was challenging and made it difficult to engage with the characters at times.