Start The Snow Society as a party. It shows the camaraderie, the joy of being together, the joy and enthusiasm of a Uruguayan rugby team preparing for an upcoming competition in Chile. This emotional exuberance, this endearing collegiality, this constant laughter and jokes continue on the plane that takes them over the impressive landscape of the snow-capped peaks of the Andes. Everything has the atmosphere of a youthful and friendly comedy. And that tone will suddenly turn into tragedy when dark fate, mechanics or bad luck decides that the device crashes in a scenario that from that moment on is no longer beautiful but becomes something shocking. 29 passengers died in the accident. And given what awaited the survivors, one might think that those who died were immediately lucky. Survival becomes a tragedy. Even in an epic. And some were able to come out and talk about this hell and the salvation they had achieved.
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Something strange happens to me while watching this film. If it only obeyed the imagination of the screenwriters, if it were fiction, I would often not believe what I see and hear. But this horror was real, what JA Bayona tells us happened with great solvency and infectious emotion. There are oral testimonies from the survivors and Pablo Vierci, a friend of some of them, recounted this gruesome and ultimately moving experience in a book. Bayona introduces you to a story that will make you rub your eyes, feel increasing fear, the feelings of hunger and cold, despair and hope, the desire to get it over with and the pointless longing to be one Finding the door to peace becomes authentic. Salvation.
It gives you goosebumps to see the only option they had to prevent hunger from destroying them. Also the icy atmosphere, the onset and progression of illnesses. Not just physically. Also what the heart and brain suffered from every day. And you are amazed to see that in this unimaginable hell there was solidarity, mutual care, generosity, communication between the dying and the urge to find a way to save them. Some claim in desperation that the world has abandoned them; they hear on the radio that they are considered lost forever. And some of them are consumed forever.
Enzo Vogrincic, as Numa Turcatti, in “The Snow Society”.
Because it constantly reminds you of reality, you know that there was a relatively happy result, namely that 16 of those 45 people were saved alive. And they spent more than three months trying to survive in these wild conditions. It's hard to imagine how they later managed to integrate into everyday life if the experience didn't give them nightmares forever.
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He wasn't addicted to most of the triumphant cinema of Bayonne. I also didn't like the episodes he shot for the Lord of the Rings series. I found what he achieved in The Impossible very acceptable on both a visual and emotional level. But in The Snow Society everything works perfectly. It is a film that is as heartfelt as it is beautifully made. I feel inside her all the time. His aesthetic is powerful. There are no narrative errors. And all the interpreters (I didn't know any of them) are authentic and close. Even if you know the story and its happy ending, you experience it with excitement and compassion.
The snow company
Address: Juan Antonio Bayona.
Actor: Enzo Vogrincic, Matías Recalt, Rafael Federman, Agustín Pardella, Esteban Bigliardi.
Gender: Theatre. Spain, 2023.
Duration: 144 minutes.
Premiere: December 15th.
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