The sheer human will to survive is depicted in this unimaginably true story that is told viscerally and sensitively, based on the tragic Andes flight disaster of 1972.

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Another reason I’ll never take the plane.  Society of the Snow takes the tragic story of the Andes flight disaster of 1972 and turns it into an epic survival story. 

It has had cinematic treatment before in the form of Alive (1993), a rather poorly-regarded Hollywood-ized version, but in J.A. Bayona’s much more authentic take, we have what could be the closest dramatization of the human ordeal yet. 

Unjustly reduced by media and entertainment to the crash that left survivors stranded for months and having to resort to cannibalism to survive, Bayona treats the story with a rare sensitivity towards both the dead and those who survived, some of whom are still alive today. 

Unlike the dystopian fiction of Battle Royale (2000), which uses a similar approach, albeit more sensationalistically, names of the dead listed on the screen in Society of the Snow carry an immeasurable weight of real loss. 

So it is this attitude of respect that Bayona asserts throughout this sobering tale of the sheer human will to live despite inhospitable conditions. 

“There is no greater love than that which gives one’s life for one’s friends.”

With rescue searches called off due to snow storms and the biting cold, the survivors have to grind it out and find a way to locate help. 

From the harrowing crash to their grave circumstances, Society of the Snow isn’t always a doom-and-gloom affair—there is, in fact, an undercurrent of human warmth that lifts Bayona’s work. 

The faith in God pales in comparison to the much more tangible faith in each other, something that the film makes obvious; there is no miracle except the miracle of self and collective agency. 

While Society of the Snow feels longer than it should be and does fall into certain trappings of an ‘inspirational’ wilderness survival movie, particularly its sentiment-milking epilogue, it is overall still rewarding to take in. 

Its chances of winning the Oscar for Best International Feature are rather slim though, with The Zone of Interest and Perfect Days in a potential neck-to-neck race.

Grade: B

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