Society of the Snow

Society of the Snow (La sociedad de la nieve) is a 2023 survival drama film directed by J. A. Bayona and based on Pablo Vierci's 2009 book of the same name, which details the true story of a Uruguayan rugby team's experience in 1972 after Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed in the Andes mountains. The cast is composed of Uruguayan and Argentine actors, most of whom are newcomers.

The film closed the 80th Venice International Film Festival in an Out of Competition slot. It was theatrically released in Uruguay on 13 December 2023, in Spain on 15 December 2023, and in the US on 22 December 2023, before streaming on Netflix on 4 January 2024.

Society of the Snow received positive reviews. It won 12 awards including Best Picture and Best Director at the 38th Goya Awards. At the 96th Academy Awards, it was nominated for the Best International Feature Film, representing Spain, and Best Makeup and Hairstyling.

Plot
On October 13, 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, chartered by an Uruguayan rugby football team and their supporters to take them to a game in Santiago, Chile, crashes into a glacier in the heart of the Andes mountains. Of the 45 passengers on board, 29 survive the initial crash, although more would die from injury, disease, and an avalanche over the following weeks. Trapped in one of the most inaccessible and hostile environments on the planet, the survivors are forced to resort to survival cannibalism of those who had already died in order to stay alive. However, rather than turn against each other, the survivors draw upon the cooperative teamwork they learned through rugby, and spiritual faith, in order to escape the mountains.

Development
Bayona discovered Pablo Vierci's 2009 account of the crash, La sociedad de la nieve, while conducting research for his 2012 film The Impossible, and bought the rights for the book when he finished filming that movie. The filmmakers recorded more than 100 hours of interviews with all of the living survivors. The actors had contact with the survivors and the families of the victims.

Bayona struggled to find funding for 10 years, stating that the "major problem was the fact it was in Spanish with a big budget, which is not the big budget of an American film. So it’s been hard because somehow the market doesn’t accept this kind of product."

Filming
Principal photography took place in Sierra Nevada, Spain; Montevideo, Uruguay; Chile and Argentina, including the actual crash site in the Andes. Filming in Sierra Nevada lasted from 10 January to 29 April 2022. Filming in Uruguay concluded in late July 2022, and the production continued in Madrid. Production took the total of 138 shooting days, with its budget reported to be over €65 million.

In August 2021, the second unit, headed by Alejandro Fadel, Argentine director of Murder Me, Monster, filmed landscapes in Chile for reference in on-set virtual production and post-production. In Sierra Nevada, the production was challenged by a scarcity of snow, and by Saharan Air Layer which covered the mountains with orange dust. Three replicas of fuselage wreckages were used: one was placed in a hangar built on a parking lot, another was buried in artificial snow and supported by a hydraulic crane that allowed for it to be moved, and the third was placed above a tarn at an altitude of 3000 m.  In the hangar, a 30-metre-tall screen displayed the second unit's footage of the Andes. The third unit was tasked with more dangerous mountain shots. The three units consisted of around 300 workers.

David Martí and Montse Ribé, Academy Award–winning special effects makeup artists of Pan's Labyrinth, created prosthetic corpses and wounds. Post-production was planned to last about five months involving 300 personnel. Vierci, who serves as an associate producer, visited the set in Sierra Nevada.

Bayona showed an early version of the film to one of the survivors, José Luis "Coche" Inciarte, before he died in July 2023. The 14 remaining survivors saw the film one or two months prior to the premiere.

Release
The film was set as the 80th Venice International Film Festival's closing film, with a world premiere out-of-competition screening at the Palazzo del Cinema slated for 9 September 2023, following the festival's awards ceremony. It was selected to screen in the Perlak section at the 71st San Sebastián International Film Festival in September 2023. It also screened in the Out of Competition section at the 56th Sitges Film Festival, and at the 2023 AFI Fest.

The film was programmed for a technical screening run from 20 to 26 October 2023 in the Cine Aragonia of Zaragoza. It received a Spanish theatrical release on 15 December 2023 and was released in US theatres on 22 December 2023.

Society of the Snow was released as a Netflix original on January 4, 2024 and reached Netflix's list of Top 10 Non-English films. In its first 11 days, it had 51 million views on Netflix.

Critical response
Roxana Hadadi of Vulture states that the film’s “philosophical script and unshakeable performances” both “elevates” it and “pushes it into transcendence.” She also suggests that not “since Martin Scorsese’s Silence has a film so effectively asked us to consider whether faith is benevolence or a blight.” Pete Hammond of Deadline suggests that Bayona's interpretation of the crash is "ultimately a spiritual journey on many levels, focusing on the human will to overcome the worst of circumstances," and that it is "a story of how humanity comes together for each other." Wendy Ide of ScreenDaily argues that the Bayona's "adaptation of this much-filmed story is elevated by bracingly muscular action sequences," and that what sets it apart "is the decision not to focus entirely on the survivors. Bayona is at pains to ensure that the voices that are foregrounded are not necessarily those of the crash victims who eventually make it home." Finally, Guy Lodge of Variety describes the film as composed of an “unstarry, fully Spanish-speaking cast” and is a “brawnily effective tear-jerker.” He also notes that it has a “nuanced, non-denominational spiritualism, which further distinguishes it from the more straightforwardly inspirational adventure brief of the previous film.”

David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter found the film to be "uneven but ultimately effective," told "with authenticity and chilling realism, with emotion but without sensationalism." Professor Jorge Majfud (author of Cine político latinoamericano) argues that this version repeats the plot of previous films without a rereading to justify it, because a film is a commercial phenomenon that exploits a tragedy in a way he suggests complies with larger social class and racial patterns. He also argues that this is typical of the dominant Anglo-Saxon cultural industry.

Carlos Boyero of El País found it was "a credible and emotional depiction of the horrible experience of the accident". Teté Ribeiro of the Folha de S.Paulo insisted the fim was "not for the weak stomachs".

Among the rare completely negative reviews, Luís Miguel Oliveira of Público stated "They survived. Cinema didn't." and considered Society of the Snow to be "a bad American film made by Europeans".

Top ten lists
The film appeared on a number of critics' top ten lists of the best Spanish films of 2023:
 * 1st — El Español (Series & Más consensus)
 * 3rd — Mondosonoro (consensus)
 * 4th — El Confidencial (consensus)
 * 4th — El Mundo (Luis Martínez)
 * 6th — El Periódico de Catalunya (critics)

Comparison with Alive
J. A. Bayona received an email from Frank Marshall, director of the 1993 film Alive, which also depicted the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crash and its aftermath. Bayona said that Marshall told him "how much he loved" Society of the Snow. Bayona went on to say that Alive "created an impact on a whole generation and, somehow, that film also is the product of its time, you know. That was shot in a studio, in a Hollywood studio. Shot in English. Maybe [it] was too soon, especially for the families of the deceased, to be part of a movie... But it was a very effective film at the time. I think that both films complement each other somehow."