I’m playing a bit of catch up on the Oscar contenders that I’ve missed recently. Mostly the ones with limited theatrical runs that go straight to streamers. One of those is Society of the Snow from late 2023 and a recent Netflix addition early this year. This film has just been nominated in a number of categories for the 2024 Academy Awards, including the best international feature Oscar where it represents Spain.
The film follows a true story of survival in the worst of conditions following a plane crash in the Andes mountains. The story has been put to screen before in the film Alive, which released in 1993 with an all American cast. Even though this version was praised for its creation and performances, there was room to tell this story in its native language with great input from the survivors.
Society of the Snow starts with narration and a little backstory before delving into the events of the crash. We watch as the group of rugby players collect members of their families and friends to join them in filling the Uruguayan air flight so they could afford to travel to Chile for a game.
Watching this sequence is where the tension of the film begins, knowing what is to come and watching the group unknowingly ask their loved ones to come along with them to an almost certain death. The film understands that we as an audience are likely to know the general story of the plane crash, so it plays on that with the lingering shots and sentimentality of the beginning of the journey. They make a great deal of the goodbyes that the passengers say to family in Uruguay. The film also knows that most of the audience only know light details of the story, so allow for a lot of tension in who survives and how they make it back to civilization.
We see the plane depart and fly into the Andes mountain range, hitting some turbulence along the way, fighting against the air pressure of the tall mountains and low valleys. As the plane dips to avoid the pressure, it hits a peak and splits in two, with the bottom half falling away as we see follow the front through the crash. This scene is particularly graphic and edited very fast, with cuts and movements through the vessel, showing the devastation of the accident.
We start to see the style of the film come through here as the camera and edit work together effectively to create a disaster scenario. Through the rest of the film, they work together smoothly as the lingering wide shots or empathetic conversations are allowed time to breathe on screen, letting us in on the characters' feelings, strengthening our connection. Any further action that follows sticks to the quick cuts and tension building movements as we jump from close ups to reaction shots in quick succession, effectively conveying the impact of any big events.
As the crash subsides. the survivors collect themselves, helping one another and counting any victims who were killed on impact. They bring them outside to lay them out while they scavenge for any food or medical supplies within bags still left on the plane. They understand that rescue may take some time so ration out what food they have for as long as it lasts, which ends up being around three days.
From then on, they starve and struggle to keep up morale, losing hope that any help is coming.
Eventually, through desperation, they resort to cutting up and eating the dead.
Obviously this element of the story has become quite synonymous with the survival of these people but the film deals with the subject matter very sensitively. It decides to focus more on the survival, relationships between the group rather than on the details that most would know. The film benefits from this approach, giving the characters a lot more humanity and therefore a lot more stakes to their survival. You push for their rescue and at every turn, you are on the edge of your seat.
I personally felt the runtime a little bit once we had gotten into the day to day of the survivors, but I don’t think it is too slow to lose interest or drop the tension of the survival. Everything in the film feels warranted in its inclusion.
A lot of the attention is kept through the emotion created in the writing, acting, which work together to create characters with depth that you care for. The relationships are established early on and built upon through the film, without having too much wavering confidence in one another.
The acting in the film is really standout, which is impressive when you realise that most of the group are first time actors. I don’t really want to delve into certain performances in order to keep a lot of the tension of the survivors' fates without spoilers. I didn’t feel certain that any of the group would make it out alive and I think that was something that helped to keep me engaged for the entire time.
The conclusion has a lot of payoff, culminating with the survivors being reunited with their loved ones. The work that Society of the Snow does throughout shows in these final moments as we see the elation and unimaginable relief felt by the group.
There is also the sensationalised media attention that they experience coming back which is touched on a little bit through a narrated conclusion, showing the hordes of people surrounding them with cameras or just hopes to see them up close.
Society of the Snow is a really impactful film that tells a sensational true story with heart and care through its narrative. The technical aspects of the film live up to the budget and always felt real when I was watching. The makeup and hairstyling of the film is also incredible, showing the deterioration of the survivors through the gruelling three months of survival.
I am a big fan of stories being told from their place of origin with people who have a connection and care for the story. So often we see retelling of historical events for the sake of ease, feeling like a story that is already there and waiting to be told. No effort is put in to the creation or authenticity of the story so the event doesn’t feel as impactful or important. Society of the Snow is the opposite of that, cementing this as a pinnacle of human endurance and the fight for survival.
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