Society of the Snow – Snapshot
Society of the Snow, based on a real airplane crash in the Andes in 1972, asks the viewer to dig deep down and decide just how far you might go in order to survive. It is very uncomfortable, but perhaps very essential. (4.5*)
Where to Watch:
Stream: Netflix
Rent/Buy: (Nowhere)
Society of the Snow – The Oscar Buzz
Oscar Nominations (2) / Oscar Wins (0) :
International Feature (Spain)
Makeup & Hairstyling (Lopez-Puigcerver, Marti, Ribe)
Society of the Snow is this year’s International Feature film from Spain. Foreign films are often difficult to relate to American Oscar culture because they usually involve cast and crew from other countries with little or no experience with Hollywood or the Oscar traditions. In this case, though, the director and co-writer, J.A. Bayona, has a previous Oscar film, The Impossible where he directed Naomi Watts to a leading actress nomination. If you recall, the movie is also about a disaster, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Two of Bayona’s other films were horror or dark fantasies and so he is no stranger to building suspenseful stories. He brought to Society of the Snow some of the people he worked with earlier for assistance in writing the screenplay, editing, and makeup.
Bayona and his three co-writers, Bernat Vilaplana, Jaime Marques, and Nicolas Casariego, combed through 100 hours of interviews with survivors of the crash. They also relied heavily on the 2009 book La Sociedad de la Nieve by Pablo Vierci (which I have not read!)
Society of the Snow also received a nomination for Makeup & Hairstyling, recognizing the incredible work done in simulating the effects of starvation, freezing conditions, and lack of personal hygiene that would result from being stranded for 72 days in the barren Andean mountains. Two of the nominees, David Marti and Montse Ribe, won the Makeup & Hairstyling Oscar for Pan’s Labyrinth in 2007. They also worked together on one of the Hellboy movies.
Although not nominated for Society of the Snow, the composer, Michael Giacchino, is no stranger to the Oscars having received a nomination for his music to Ratatouille and winning the Oscar for his score to Up. His music for Society of Snow is a remarkable contribution to the emotional tensions of the film and I encourage you to watch the movie with the sound turned up.
Also not nominated but deserving a shout-out are the sound engineers. There is an unforgettable minute of sound at the 14 minute mark when the plane actually crashes and then violently stops, smashing the seats, and the people in them, into each other in a bone-crunching accordion. The sounds of the avalanches a couple weeks later are equally horrific. In between talking, the absolute silence is mindful of just what a barren place, with no prospect of lif they found themselves in.
Most of the actors are Latin American and quite young, playing characters pretty much their own age. Enzo Vogrincic, who plays Numa, and is the narrator for most of the film, looks and acts a lot like a young John Travolta. But none of them are known to me, although we may be hearing and seeing more of them.
Society of the Snow – Related Movies
The Impossible (Direction, Screenplay)
A Monster Calls (Direction, Screenplay, Editing)
The Orphanage (Direction, Makeup&Hairstyling)
The Batman/Up/Ratatouille/Jojo Rabbit/Coco (Music)
Pan’s Labyrinth/Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Makeup&Hairstyling)
Society of the Snow – What Others Think
The viewing public generally liked this film ranking it second out of the five International features (behind Perfect Days), and 13th out of all 38 nominated films (tied with Nimona and The Color Purple). Viewer comments lauded the “stunning technical achievement” while also noting that it displayed “The human spirit in full flight”. It is certainly a riveting movie that leaves you with much to chew on for days.
Critics were much less accepting and I’m not quite sure why. Overall they thought this was the worst of the International features, and placed it in the bottom third of all 38 nominated films. The reason for the low rating might be the sheer discomfort that watching this movie invokes and the difficulty of writing about your reactions. Ben Kenigsberg (New York Times) wrote that it “is a perverse movie to watch the way most people will see it – on Netflix, in the comfort of their homes, with a refrigerator nearby.” I guess I get the point, but where would a better place be to see it – in a movie theater munching on popcorn and beef jerky? RogerEbert’s Sheila O’Malley zeroes in on some of the discomfort “A story like this fascinates for many reasons. For me, the fascination is primal and one of nervous empathy: Who would I be if tested like this?” Indeed, the film forces you to weigh your moral convictions against your need for survival – what’s comfortable about that? MaryAnn Johanson (FlickFilosopher) echos that thought “In this new film, the moral, ethical, and philosophical quandaries of what it takes to sustain oneself in body and soul in impossible conditions take center stage…that is in many ways profoundly spiritual…”. I suppose a key point the critics might be raising is whether it is even appropriate to ask us – viewing a movie – to even consider the magnitude of the participant’s emotional struggle.
As you can probably guess, with audiences liking the movie and critics having problems, Society of the Snow ends up in the middle of this year’s nominated films in my overall rating scales. I think that is unfortunate – it is a bettter movie than that.
Society of the Snow – Special Mention
The Crash History – Society of the Snow is based on a true story. On October 13, 1972 an Uruguayan airplane with a crew of 5 and 40 passengers was flying across the Andes mountains from Montevideo, Uruguay to Santiago, Chile, after stopping overnight in Mendoza, Argentina. Flight 571 was chartered to fly a rugby team (young men mostly in their early 20s) and some of their family members for a game against a Chilean team.
The plane did not make it, crashing at the top of a mountain which sheared off wings and the tail section. Miraculously much of the fuselage was preserved but, at speeds exceeding 200 mph, it hurtled down the other side of the mountain in crusty snow until it plowed into a pack of snow and ice, abruptly stopping the motion. Later investigations suggest that one or both pilots failed to read critical flight sensor data while navigating through thick clouds over high mountains. Although the plane may not have been designed well to fly at high altitudes, there was no evidence of mechanical failure and the crash was labeled as “controlled flight into terrain due to pilot error”. Twelve people died during the crash itself leaving 33 survivors, many critically wounded.
The fuselage came to rest in a mountain cirque covered with deep snow at an elevation of nearly 12,000 feet. As night descended, temperatures plunged to below zero. Five more people died that night battling severe cold and serious injuries and a sixth person, a sister of one of the players, died after suffering for three days. The survivors, some with serious leg injuries, were able to create a degree of shelter from the elements using suitcases to fill holes in the fuselage. Others searched the luggage to find whatever might be useful.
Battling the cold, fierce snowstorms, and even one or two avalanches, many of them managed to survive for days which then turned into weeks. Shared bodily warmth was how they survived much of the elements. Hope for search and rescue efforts to find them died out when they managed to hear on a makeshift radio receiver, that after eleven days, the various authorities had ended the search effort. They were now presumed all dead and were on their own, with whatever hope they could muster.
After a month of intense battles with the elements, the southern hemisphere began to thaw and temperatures rose some. The uninjured athletes did mount efforts to climb out of the cirque and, at the top of the mountain, all they could see was more mountains. Eventually an effort to head west paid off when two of the teammates encountered a caballero on horseback. Help was secured, a recovery effort successfully found them and helicopters ferried the remaining survivors out of what had been their home for more than two months. In the end 29 of the original 45 people on the plane perished. But, after 72 days, there were 16 survivors.
At 12,000 feet not much survives – plants do not grow and, without plants, there are no animals to hunt. The human body can survive only three days without water, and maybe three weeks without food. But these survivors lasted more than ten weeks. They could, and did, melt snow for water. But the suitcases had little food and it was exhausted after just a few days. And so the real story here is how they survived for ten weeks with the only available nutrition being the frozen bodies of their teammates and companions.
Society of the Snow – Michael’s Moments
What would you do?
For me, that is the critical question and it invokes so many competing thoughts and emotions that blur the boundaries between religion, philosophy, and ethics. Just how strong is your own survival instinct and to what lengths would you go to survive? After battling the elements with your team mates and discovering just what their mettle is made of, and then watch one of them die – could you then consume his corpse because you are starving to death and will die too if you don’t do so?
Society of the Snow is not a pleasant movie to watch. It asks you to imagine your limits and then push through to the other side – how can that be fun? It isn’t, and I’m pretty sure it is because of how successful this film works that many people are put off by not just its theme, but also of its own hubris in even attempting to raise such unanswerable questions.
There have been other attempts to portray this story and, I admit, I haven’t seen them. But it is difficult to imagine how they could match this film in the way it forces the viewer to absorb what these people went through and the decisions they made. One of them, Numa – the narrator in Society of the Snow – found it extremely difficult to break this ultimate taboo. But on day 60, a once-strong athlete died of starvation only weighing 55 pounds. Society of the Snow does not treat these decisions lightly and you watch as each of them considers the possibilities and, with varying degrees of speed, make their own personal decision.
The movie could easily suffer criticism that it can’t possibly reflect what really happened. Based on 100 hours of interviews with some of the sixteen survivors and on a book of the same name, we have to assume that the level of fidelity is probably not precise, but must be pretty close. The technical qualities of the film all help to enhance its realism. Perhaps none of us really want to obliterate all distance and actually live that nightmare.
I was curious about the title of the film and of the book on which it is based. Why “Society” of the Snow? We usually think of “society” as an organized group of people, functioning to set goals, adapt to the environment, integrate their members, and to ensure some kind of latency or ongoing survival of the group. Viewed from this sociological perspective the survivors on that mountain meet all the conditions necessary to be called a “society”. But we also think of a society as having a culture that defines their way of life, establishes their beliefs and morals, and embodies them in a shared framework of thought, belief, and feeling. In our world, populated by grocery stores, farms, and ranches we don’t give much thought to some of the basic issues of survival. But what happens when even the idea of continuity is under perpetual challenge? Does “society” and “culture” break down?
I think Society of the Snow answers strongly No! This group of mostly young men developed just such a profound sense of shared culture – everyone played an important role and they recognized the value of each other. Numa, our narrator, had profound feelings about consuming human flesh – so profound, in fact, that he dies of starvation on day 60. Upon his death, his surviving teammates find that he holds a note, written by him and intended for them. It says “There is no greater love than that which gives one’s life for one’s friends.” That defines the Society of the Snow. (4.5*)
