The Big Picture

Society of the Snow is a technically well-made film that grounds itself in the humanity of its characters facing an unimaginable crisis. The film effectively depicts the harrowing true story of a devastating plane crash that left a group of survivors stranded in the Andes mountains. The technical details and immersive presentation make the film emotionally profound, but the narration can be reductive in not letting the visuals speak for themselves.

If it wouldn’t be absolutely terrifying to do so, Society of the Snow feels like the exact type of movie you’ll watch alone on a plane a few months from now and find it to be quite good before bemoaning that it didn’t get a wider theatrical release. Instead, the latest from writer-director J.A. Bayona is only popping up in a handful of theaters before being sent to Netflix starting January 4. While the streamer is by no means the only one to often not give their films proper theatrical releases, it still feels disappointing each time it happens. While all releases deserve to be seen with the best visuals and sound, there is also the communal aspect of going to the movies that would serve a film like this rather well.

Society of the Snow In 1972, the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, chartered to fly a rugby team to Chile, catastrophically crashes on a glacier in the heart of the Andes. Only 29 of the 45 passengers survived the crash and finding themselves in one of the world’s toughest environments, they are forced to resort to extreme measures to stay alive. – Netflix Release Date January 4, 2024 Cast Enzo Vogrincic , Esteban Bigliardi , Simon Hempe , Matías Recalt Rating R Runtime 144 minutes Main Genre Survival Writers J.A. Bayona , Nicolás Casariego , Jaime Marques Distributor(s) Netflix

Hearing the way people react to moments of terror, triumph, and everything in between is what makes the experience of taking in a shared cinematic vision such a special one. Not to get too romantic about it, but there is something irreplaceable about it that feels like it is being increasingly lost. That even a film like Society of the Snow, a well-made and even potential late awards contender, isn’t in theaters across the globe just brings this perplexing state of affairs into focus. As it is now, it feels like a film that risks being buried in the malaise of churned-out streaming movies when it could have left more of an impact had people gotten the chance to go out to see it. It’s more than a little imperfect, with some narration undercutting it at key moments, but goodness does its presentation leave a mark.

What Is ‘Society of the Snow’ About?

Originally premiering at this year’s Venice Film Festival and based on the harrowing true story of a group of plane crash survivors who must fight to stay alive in the desolate cold of the Andes mountains in the 1970s, it is a film that gets right to the central event. We get a very brief series of introductions to some of the characters, primarily made up of a young rugby team going on a trip that they’re all initially excited about before it all goes terribly wrong. The crash sequence, even as you know it is fast approaching, is a nightmare. It is effectively constructed and terrifying as the sound of the disaster carries just as much weight as the gruesome chaos we see unfolding onscreen. This is only the beginning, as the survivors will then be faced with the threats of starvation, cold, or, at many moments, overwhelming despair. As we watch them try to survive, desperately trying to come up with a plan to find a way back home, Bayona strikes a balance between showing respect to the victims while also never flinching from the reality that they all had to endure. Though there have been other works that have tried to take on this story, this is now the definitive film to do so and greatly benefits from drawing heavily from survivor Pablo Vierci’s book of the same name.

Each of the cast is fully up to the task with what little time they get amidst the ensemble, including Esteban Bigliardi of this year’s twisty heist film The Delinquents who delivers one great monologue about midway through, and bring a real sense of understated gravitas that ground the immense spectacle in something human. However, the standout of the film is the way Bayona and his crew present it with precise attention to the technical details. There is never a moment where you aren’t completely immersed in the particulars of what is playing out. Whether it is the slow creeping in of dread where the characters realize they may have to turn to consuming those who have already died, which the film makes room for the complicated feelings and discussions that go into this, or another moment of crisis where they may be buried alive in the snow, you feel every single development in painful detail.

The presentation places you fully in the emotional mindset of the characters as they stake their hope on something like a radio only to hear that the search has been called off and they are basically on their own. If anything, the experience is best when it lets the filmmaking speak for itself. Elements of recurring narration by a central character can be poetic in certain moments while reductive in others, spelling out things that we can already feel from the visual language of the film. For every moment where it feels like it adds an extra layer, it can also take away a few just as easily. What it reveals itself as and the way this becomes the ending narration does work, though it still has some moments scattered throughout that frequently don’t nearly as well. Perhaps there is something self-reflexive about how this narration reveals that making sense of something unimaginable for audiences far removed from it will rely on specific framing devices, though the film remains best when it doesn’t.

‘Society of the Snow’ Does Right by Its True Story
Image via Netflix

In the end, Bayona’s film takes us right into the heart of this story with clear-eyed focus and the necessary technical craft to make it work. While the filmmaker’s last feature, the pulpy yet perfunctory prehistoric romp Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, was a little all over the place, this one brings his same directing abilities to a more sturdy story. One may be tempted to compare it to The Impossible, another time he dramatized a disaster, but Society of the Snow finds something more expansive about all of its characters rather than falling into being far too narrowly focused as that film did. One can only hope this vision doesn’t get buried and that, like the characters themselves, it eventually gets to emerge into the light.

Rating: 7/10

Society of the Snow is now showing in limited theaters in the U.S. before being available to stream on Netflix starting January 4. Click below for showtimes.

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