Director JA Bayona is drawn to disasters and the unimaginable strength – and providence – required to survive them, 11 years after he tackled these themes in The Impossible (2012) (and then, in far more fantastical terms). , in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)), he revisits it with Society of the Snow, a dramatized account of the 1972 Andean air disaster. Even though Bayona's latest feature is now an oft-told story (including in “Alive” (1993), it finds a new level of beauty and horror amidst its rubble and exerts a haunting magic – at once terrifying and hopeful, desperate and inspiring – that makes it his best film to date and a worthy tribute to those who perished and who managed to escape their fateful mountain grave.
“This is a place where life is impossible,” says Numa (Enzo Vogrincic Roldán), underscoring Society of the Snow (on Netflix January 4)’s relationship to Bayona’s previous work and encapsulating the setting : cold, barren, snow-covered valley in the Andes where a plane en route from Uruguay to Chile with 40 passengers and five crew members, including many male teenagers from the Old Christians Club rugby union team, crashed on October 13th. 1972. This place was as close to nowhere as any place on the planet and was almost supernaturally designed to never be found, and it wasn't for 71 days, which is what those who didn't die in the first accident came, forced to try bravely to stay alive. As everyone immediately realized, this was an arduous task, as they had only half of the plane's fuselage for shelter, minimal clothing to keep warm (especially at night when temperatures dropped into the 80s), and barely any rations to stave off Starving.
Altar boy Numa is the nominal protagonist of Society of the Snow and also its narrator, although the film, as written by Bayona, Bernat Vilaplana, Jaime Marques and Nicolás Casariego (from Pablo Vierci's book of the same name), is an ever- The focus shifts and the Focus is on many different rugby players trying to come to terms with their dire situation. Marcelo (Diego Vegezzi), the team leader, instinctively maintains this position after the accident, keeping morale high and organizing the makeshift operation. Fito (Esteban Kukuriczka) is a pragmatist who is skeptical about a quick rescue from the start. Roberto is clear-headed and determined, qualities that will serve him well as things go from bad to worse. They and numerous others, some recognizable only by their faces, others by their actions, are neatly drawn and never exaggerated, and the proceedings' habit of moving freely among (and between) them seems natural Reflecting this fact In this saga there was no single main character, just a collection of individuals forced to band together for themselves and each other.
As the injured Arturo (Fernando Contigiani García) most movingly expresses, “Snow Society” is a snapshot of brotherhood as a bond that keeps disparate people united and breathing even in the darkest of times. Things certainly look bleak for these unlikely souls in the Andes, especially when they run out of food and are forced to consider eating their deceased comrades to sustain themselves. This cannibalism was the main sensational element of this nightmare (after her rescue), and Bayona doesn't shy away from it. However, he also doesn't judge it unless he convincingly portrays it as an agonizing, if inevitable, choice that everyone had to make, with the only other option being a slow and painful death.
There is no horror in Society of the Snow; Bayona keeps blood and dismemberment largely hidden, just as those tasked with preparing human flesh for consumption did for their own comrades, the better to ensure the success of their terrible undertaking. Instead, the director brings into sharp focus the enormity of the landscape and the imperceptible smallness of the survivors, balancing panoramic aerial shots of the crash site with shadow-shrouded, borderline distorted close-ups of his characters' faces and skin tones, dirty and their eyes full of panic and fear. Bayona uses proximity to heighten terror and pathos, and the more he clings to these men in their confined quarters (which grow increasingly narrower as the situation worsens), the more he conveys a strong impression of their bone-deep fear, hers all-consuming despair, and also their stubborn refusal to simply give up – and, just as important, their reluctance to let the people next to them give up.
Society of the Snow is a portrait of strength in numbers and its history – full of hikes into the surrounding mountains that expose hikers to the unbearable nighttime cold and roaring avalanches that trap them beneath the white, powdery surface in a de facto Metal Captive Coffin – features multiple literal and figurative deaths and rebirths. Refusing to resort to melodrama, the film adopts the trauma-filled tenor and perspective of Numa, who asks himself, “What happened to us?” Who were we on the mountain?” On the one hand, Bayona provides these answers, and yet they remain consistently elusive. Camaraderie and an insatiable hunger for extra life sustained the 16 men who finally emerged from this Andes hellhole after 72 days. But what they experienced and returned with is, in a much more serious way, something dark, unshakable, incurable – a scream of grief, rage and pain so loud that, if unleashed, it would drown out all real screams would dwarf (For Mother! For Help!) bouncing off the metal interior of the plane's fuselage.
There are tragedies and triumphs in The Company of Snow, but Bayona refuses to dwell manipulatively on either. It is a study of a legitimate worst-case scenario and the very real, rational, desperate, and terrible decisions made to overcome that scenario. Still, no matter how faith and God are occasionally spoken of, absolution did not await those who eventually returned to civilization, and perhaps the greatest strength of Bayona's excellent drama is that it approaches its material with the same sad, austere sobriety The living passengers of 571 – a group of ordinary people who have learned that life is unimaginably unfair, that survival is difficult and that, ultimately, togetherness is everything.