THE ANGEL — When Gustavo Zerbino saw “Society of the Snow,” the 1972 plane crash survivor felt like he was being “immersed in boiling water,” reliving the 70-plus days he and his rugby teammates spent in the Mountains of the Andes were stranded in snow.
Zerbino praised JA Bayona's raw, unfiltered film, which premiered on Netflix in the United States and Latin America, but he also felt the same fears and emotions he experienced as a young athlete more than 50 years ago when he was stranded.
“Thankfully (the film) ends in two and a half hours,” he told The Associated Press last October.
The Bayona drama is based on the book of the same name by Pablo Vierci and tells the story of the disaster of a Uruguayan Air Force plane. The Old Christians rugby team was traveling to Chile for a game with family and friends when their plane crashed, stranding them in the mountains where they faced blizzards, avalanches, starvation and were forced to eat the flesh of the deceased.
The story of the tragedy has been told many times. It's been featured on TV shows like “Seinfeld,” dramatized in countless films like 1993's “Alive” starring Ethan Hawke, been the subject of documentaries and plays, and even inspired Showtime's “Yellowjackets,” which was nominated for an Emmy.
“We always felt like things were missing,” Zerbino said, looking back on previous projects. “The book 'The Snow Society' is a book that filled what was missing.”
In exploring the complex story of resilience and survival, Bayona wanted to do more than simply stage a dramatic interpretation of a real tragedy. I wanted to tell a story that honored the survivors and victims of the accident and their Uruguayan culture.
“It's more of a reflection than an action book and in the end it helped me a lot to understand the characters,” the Spanish director said of Vierci's book. The author is co-producer of the film.
Bayona, whose film credits include “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” and “A Monster Comes to See Me,” wanted to explore the connection between the living and the dead, including paying homage to those who have died on screen.
“When he showed us the blueprints of what he was doing, it gave us all goosebumps and made our hearts stop. I mean, we've already seen that it was very real and very powerful, and we've seen that it was genius,” Zerbino said.
The Golden Globe-nominated film is narrated by Numa Turcatti, who died shortly before the rescue, and played by Enzo Vogrincic. This decision was made by the director and supported by Vierci.
“This possibility has always fascinated me and I have to tell it from the perspective of the dead,” said Vierci.
“It's (a story) small in the sense that 51 years ago 45 people were lost on a plane, but it's so symbolic, it's so symbolic (…) it's so good to have this window through which we “See how these people, who endured great adversity, built a society where compassion and mercy prevailed,” the author added.
Bayona's film attempts to honor history and avoid whitewashing or sensationalizing the horrors endured by the passengers and crew. In addition to speaking with survivors and victims' relatives and visiting the crash site, he weaves Uruguayan candombe music into the highest points of tension and includes Turcatti's favorite song by a popular Uruguayan band in one of the film's first upbeat scenes.
“I was very interested in immersing myself in the culture of Uruguay, the culture of that time,” said the director.
His focus was also on survivors of the accident, such as Carlitos Páez, who was stranded in the snow at the age of 19 and plays his father in the film.
“I wanted to get as close to reality as possible,” said Bayona, who put his actors through a medically supervised weight-loss program and filmed the avalanche scenes in icy conditions.
The film is on the shortlist for the “Best International Feature Film” category at the 2024 Academy Awards.
When Vogrincic first heard about the project, the Uruguayan actor knew he had to be part of the story.
“It's a story in Uruguay that's instilled in you and in some ways you get to know it from a young age,” the actor said. “There is a feeling of pride that accompanies you because they are Uruguayans (…), but when you delve into the history and go deeper and get to know them, you also begin to discover that the story is much bigger, that” history is human.”
Zerbino watched the film with other survivors of the accident and relatives of the victims. The closing credits were greeted with a standing ovation, he said.
According to the former rugby player, it was the first time that the relatives of many of the victims were included in the description of what happened.
“They hadn't read or seen films because they didn't want to suffer. And they have reconciled themselves with history,” said Zerbino, who is committed to preserving the legacy of his deceased team members.
Bayona's film defends the mission of Zerbino and the other survivors: to preserve the legacy of those who gave up their existence to keep their friends alive.
“The snow society is real, it is not fiction, to the point that I returned to this world, but I continue to live in the snow society, my norms are love, friendship, solidarity,” Zerbino said.