A One Mann’s Movies Film Review of “Society of the Snow” (2024).
J.A. Bayona has delivered some cracking films over the years. 2012’s “The Impossible” was the definitive movie of the 2004 Tsunami disaster and 2016’s “A Monster Calls”, another very personal disaster movie in a way, was a masterpiece that made my No. 2 in my Films of the Year list. His latest, “Society of the Snow”, is another movie that mines your core emotions, taking us back to 1972 and another disaster high up in the truly beautiful but deadly Andes mountains.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
Plot Summary:
In an extraordinary true-life story, a Uruguayan plane carrying 45 passengers and crew, and including the team members from the Old Christians rugby union team, left Montevideo on a flight to Santiago in Chile. They never made it, with the plane crashing on a remote snowy peak in the Andes. With Mother Nature at her fiercest, the remaining survivors will do anything to survive. Anything.
“Society of the Snow” is currently streaming on Netflix.
Certification:
UK: 15; US: R. (From the BBFC web site: “Strong threat, injury detail, disturbing scenes”.)
Talent:
Starring: Enzo Vogrincic, Agustín Pardella, Matías Recalt, Esteban Bigliardi.
Directed by: J.A. Bayona.
Written by: J.A. Bayona, Bernat Vilaplana, Jaime Marques & Nicolás Casariego. (Based on the book “La Sociedad de la Nieve” by Pablo Vierci).
Twitter Handle: #SocietyOfTheSnow.
Running Time: 2h 24m.
Numa (Enzo Vogrincic), our narrator and guide through all the trauma. (Source: Netflix)
“Society of the Snow” Film Review:
Positives:
- I remember reading, with horror, the book “Alive” by Piers Paul Read back in 1974. (It came via my school book-reading mail-order club called “Scoop” – anyone old and crinkly enough to remember that?!) The story made a big impression on me: what would I do in those circumstances? The book was later turned into a very good film by Frank Marshall and starring Ethan Hawke in 1993. This version is all in Spanish (with subtitles) but it managed to really get to me. The film-making is extraordinarily clever, with wonderful little details thrown into the mix: a beer bottle cracking due to the extreme cold; the respectful replacement of a victim’s lost shoe; jump cuts from a night-time scene of a desperate man in pain to his corpse at dawn; sudden shots of absolute calm and tranquility as chaos reigns all around. Bayona is a master film-maker, without doubt.
- The plane crash is really something else. I’ve obviously seen lots of films with plane crashes before. “Castaway”; “Plane“; “Flight“; etc. But none of them come near to the seat-clenching tension of this movie’s sequence. (The nearest I’ve probably seen are the final moments of “United 93” and we know how that turned out.) The sequence here is brilliantly executed at a technical level (great special effects and model work) and horribly violent and visceral. It makes you absolutely want to ensure that if you are EVER in that position you adopt the proper brace position with your feet squarely planted on the floor! The sequence is so terrifying that I think it’s a pretty good bet that this movie is unlikely to appear as the viewing option on your next BA or Virgin flight!
- The tale takes so many dramatic twists with the villain of the piece being Mother Nature herself. Just when you think things are nice and stable again she says “Not so fast matey!” and turns the tables again in hideous and life-sapping ways. Bayona gives you very little of stability to cling onto. It’s a shock when good friends, that you have got to know and love, meet their demise. You feel grateful for the comfort of having young Numa (Enzo Vogrincic, looking like a young Adam Driver) as the film’s narrator to cling on to.
- There was a discussion by Dan Cook and Scott Forbes on this week’s Flickering Dreams podcast (see here) about this film. Comment was made that we didn’t get enough into the psychological trauma experienced by the survivors. But I disagree. I think the roller-coaster of emotions from the hopeful highs (e.g. finding the plane’s batteries) to the desperate lows (e.g. hearing bad news on a transistor radio) is really well done. Particularly strong I thought were the scenes where a desperately hungry team, one-by-one, apologetically go against the moral stand of their captain Javier (Esteban Bigliardi).
- The landscape (actually Spain’s Sierra Nevada mountains standing in for the Andes) is absolutely stunning and sets the appropriate scale to make you realise what an amazing story it is. How ANYONE survived that is a miracle.
- I thought some of the music, particularly in the closing segments, was wonderful. I thought it had the tonality and feeling of “Lost” about it. Then I found during the end titles that, yes indeed, Michael Giacchino had delivered the score! A+ for my composer spotting skills then!
Negatives:
- I really have little to complain about with this film. It had me gripped from beginning to end. Perhaps at nearly two and a half hours it is about 20 minutes too long. Maybe the story could have been truncated and one of the ‘expeditions’ could have been quietly forgotten about. But, to be honest, I would have missed that if I watched a cut without it.
The extremes of warmth and freezing, FREEZING cold experienced by the survivors. (Source: Netflix)
Summary Thoughts on “Society of the Snow”
Given the subject matter, this film will not be for everyone. It is certainly a gruelling and at times upsetting watch. But as a true story of hope and faith over adversity it is an EXTRAORDINARY tale and a wonderfully well-made film. In terms of the “Best International Film” at the upcoming Oscars I was torn between “Past Lives” and “Anatomy of a Fall“. Now there’s a third complication thrown into the mix!
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Trailer for “Society of the Snow”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDak4qLyF4Q .
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