THE NEW YORK TIMES Filmmakers love survival stories, but there are aspects of the socalled “Miracle of the Andes” that pose particular difficulties for any film, especially since half a century later the most infamous events take a turn familiar to most moviegoers. Viewers.
On October 13, 1972, a Uruguayan plane en route to Santiago, Chile, with 45 people on board, including the Old Christians rugby team, crashed in the Andes. Ten weeks later, 16 people survived in a rescue operation. They did this through a mixture of ingenuity, perseverance, faith and, famously, by choosing in a mountainous, snowy environment, without food to eat the dead.
Behindthescenes footage from “The Snow Society,” a Netflix film depicting the “miracle of the Andes.” Photo: Quim Vives/Netflix/Disclosure
Roberto Canessa, one of the survivors who became an eminent pediatric cardiologist and Uruguay's 1994 presidential candidate, told National Geographic that “anthropophagy” was a better word for what was happening than “cannibalism,” which could mean human death from consumption.
The film is a mix of images of the Andes and locations in the Sierra Nevada in Spain The snow companyleaded by YES Bayona (The Orphanage) has the credibility that the 1993 film Alive lacked, with its mostly American cast led by a preGetting Real Ethan Hawke with hair like a magazine cover.
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But The Snow Society, based on a book by Pablo Vierci, lacks the immediacy of seeing the real survivors, a spectacle offered by the documentary Stranded: I've Come From a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains (2008) interestingly released in 2008 Portuguese also titled A Sociedade da Neve.
For an action veteran like Bayona, the accident is the easy part. The foreshadowing is relentless and unnecessary. “This could be our last trip together,” says Pancho Delgado (Valentino Alonso) in the first scenes in Montevideo to Numa Turcatti (Enzo Vogrincic), a passenger who narrates the film (and whose fate remains with him for a long time). one of his tricks). cheaper).
During the flight, a newspaper headline warns viewers about a boat that sank off the coast of Montevideo. The teenagers discuss how dangerous it is to fly through the Andes, as the hot Argentine winds and cold mountain air create a suction.
The plane crash is shockingly haunting.
Snow, debris and wind spread across the open hull. Rows of seats collapse like accordions, impaling some passengers. The soundtrack is a thumping metal drone. After the wreckage comes to rest, Bayona films the opening moments in confusing closeups as the characters struggle to understand what just happened and its geometry.
“The Snow Society” was inspired by a plane crash that shocked the world in 1972. Photo: Netflix/Disclosure
Long distances are more complicated from a dramatic perspective. “The problem is that no film can truly convey the magnitude of the experience,” Roger Ebert wrote of Vivos 31 years ago, and that remains true today. Cinema is good in picture and sound, but it is less effective in capturing hunger, cold and delay, at least when the duration is measured in days and weeks.
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The question then arises as to how graphic this film should be; In this regard, The Snow Society remains understated, although at least one ribcage is visibly severed to the bone.
In no version of this story was the survivors' decision to eat human flesh portrayed as hasty or careless. Once the choice is made, this time three men first slaughter without others seeing them. But when an avalanche hits the group and kills some of them, it suddenly becomes impossible to eat meat without names and faces, says Numa in his voiceover in the film. Bayona then shows Roberto (Matías Recalt) cutting into seemingly nonanonymous flesh but tactfully keeping anything identifiable about the body out of the picture.
“The Snow Society,” an Oscarnominated film, is available on Netflix. Photo: Netflix/Disclosure
The film is essentially immersive, and parts of it are hard to resist, including Nando Parrado (Agustín Pardella) and Roberto's first glimpse of another person after the two spend days climbing the path to civilization. But The Snow Society is a wicked movie that can be seen the way most people will see it on Netflix, in the comfort of their own home, with a fridge nearby.