Society of the Snow

(La Sociedad de la nieve)

dir: J. A. Bayona

2023

This is a story like few others. A heroic tale of survival against impossible odds. A level of dedication and bravery like hopefully none of us will ever experience.

And yet…

That it is a true story is the most remarkable aspect of it all. That, of the survivors who were picked up 72 days after their plane crashed in the Andes, most of them are still alive to this day is even more baffling.

But when you mention how they did it…

It’s okay to feel some conflicted feelings about it all. I know I do.

I watched this two and a half hour film, and I enjoyed it immensely, despite the fact that it is about something unbelievably terrible that I can barely mention without feeling ill.

There is something about survival stories that I think we all respond to (well, those of us that can stomach the more grotesque details), because most of us want to survive, are alive, and want to stay that way. And we’re thrilled by the idea of people (standing in for ourselves) sacrificing life and limb in order to keep others safe or alive, whether they love them, are related to them, or not.

The more extreme the environment, the more likely that death will come for all, the more heightened the emotions involved, the more of a vicarious thrill on the audience’s part(?)

And environments don’t get more inhospitable, more extreme that the top of a mountain in the Andes, in the 1970s.

I think this flick does a decent job of trying to differentiate between the various members of the Old Christians Club rugby team from Montevideo, Uruguay, so that they don’t seem like a blur of similar faces and haircuts (it doesn’t really succeed at that, but at least it tries), but there are just too many people to remember. How fortunate for us that fate will intervene and whittle them down for us, making it ever so much easier to keep track.

For a long while, the person through whose eyes we watch events transpire is Numa Turcatti (Enzo Vogrincic), someone who isn’t even part of the team, but is friends with a couple of the members. He has no reason to go on the trip, other than that he is guilted into it by one of his friends, who points out how cheap the airfares are, and that it could be one of the last times they get to hang out before uni finishes.

Many or most of the people on the team are boisterous and extroverted, but Numa is quiet and retiring, and hangs back a bit, both before the crash and even after it. Others draw solace from the camaraderie, the manner in which they are united even in the awfulness of what is happening through their common bond, yet Numa is gently teased about his standoffishness.

It’s an unfair position for him to be in, because he’s also meant to stand in for the groups collective conscience, and its moral / religious sensibilities. When what happens happens, he is the one who holds out the longest, wanting to set a better example, even as he is wasting away, as are they all. He relies, as do many / most of them, on faith that all of this means something, that things happen for a reason, that the question of who lives and who dies might come down to who has the most faith. But the flick, if not events themselves, work to disabuse anyone of that kind of thinking.

If anyone is to survive, it’s not going to be through divine intervention. That god, even for all these devout Catholics, is strangely silent on the topic, as He was as all the other people died on impact, or soon thereafter.

In a most beautiful conversation between Numa and Arturo (Fernando Contigiani García) one of the injured, he is told that the God who will save them isn’t the invisible guy in the clouds with the white beard and the sandals who cares when people touch themselves but not when preschoolers are shot in daycare or that countless people endure so much torment. No, the god who will save them is the god he sees in the hands of the people who treat his wounds every day, or those that help feed or clothe the others, or those who are doing everything they can to prolong everyone’s lives and strive to find a solution out of their impossible dilemma.

The corollary of “the Lord helps those who help themselves”, which just points to the abject general laziness of that so-called Lord, is to put your faith in those striving to save the people around them.

There’s something I’ve kinda alluded to thus far which… I haven’t made too explicit. It’s the main reason, I think, as to why this story became so famous and lingered in the collective consciousness for as long as it has. It’s why there are a couple of documentaries about the fascinating tale, and why this film was made, and why an earlier film starring Ethan Hawke and Josh Hamilton, those famous Uruguayan film stars, was made back in the 1990s called Alive. Yeah, it’s probably because of just how far the survivors went in order to survive, and I don’t mean distance travelled.

They just wanted it more. One of the most positive elements that this film manages to convey is not only the close bond that was there amongst them or developed amongst them, whether it was the core friends from the team or the few other people external to their group who managed to survive alongside them. This wonderful group of painfully young men manage to subvert the trope of Lord of the Flies, which argues that group dynamics, especially involving boys or men, necessarily requires them to devolve into vicious beasts that tear at each other until nothing is left.

It instead has them arguing about the most serious possible argument they are ever likely to have in their entire lives, but doing so in a way that acknowledges the determination of those willing to do the unthinkable while respecting those whose consciences won’t allow it.

And even when they get more desperate, more crazed with hunger, more despairing, they don’t turn on each other. An argument about consent, and I’m not talking about the sexual variety, becomes instead, as some of those who realise they might not make it, dare I say it, an act of love, of devotion to one’s brothers, of hope.

It’s impossible to untangle just how much of this stuff relates explicitly to Catholicism, down to the very literal realisation of the Eucharist as the bread that is transformed into the body of Christ through transubstantiation, which, to non-Catholics, probably sounds completely bonkers. But these are mostly people brought up deep in the bosom of the Church, and sometimes the arguments against doing something are just as easy to turn on their heads into arguments for doing the unspeakable thing.

Some of the characters, who are not necessarily all believers, go down the track of piling on more and more crucifixes, holy medals and talismans as the flick goes on, as those possessing the trinkets die. Maybe if you get enough of them, your next miracle is free?

The crash itself is brutally realised, with more detail than I think any given person could ever need, but it gives a great sense of just how terrible what happened was, and just how amazing that anyone survived the crash at all, let along the 70+ days that elapsed in the mountains before the survivors were rescued.

The very precariousness of their continued survival is always on show, and something we’re never able to forget. Rarely does it seem like they’re not suffering, except for the rare moments during the days when it’s very sunny.

The rest of the time, they have storms that go for six days at a time, avalanches, a complete lack of potable water and food, and temperatures that drop by at least 30 degrees at night trying to kill them.

But they don’t run out of cigarettes. It’s baffling to me that some of these survivors, even after a sequence whereby the remaining part of the plane that they hole up in is covered by deep drifts of snow, even then, some of these jerks are smoking.

Always bloody smoking.

This film has many virtues, but the fact that it all transpires, even as I know the story, even as I knew the outcome, and still felt like I had no idea what was going to happen or who was going to survive, in such a way that generates suspense and genuine thrills, is a significant accomplishment.

By the end I was amazed as anyone that they got out of it, that everyone’s efforts mattered, including those of the two most stout-hearted and strong-legged, being Nando (Agustin Pardella) and Roberto (Matias Recalt) who eventually went to find help, with very little to guide them, yet somehow succeeded.

It’s an amazing story, and I think this flick, which, yes, is in Spanish, and stars mostly Uruguayan and Argentinian actors, does the story justice, and honours the fallen as well. It’s a credit to everyone involved.

8 times I think I wouldn’t have made it out of the airport at the beginning out of 10

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“This is a place where life is impossible. Out here, we are an anomaly.” - Society of the Snow