Editorials
How Netflix’s Harrowing Movie ‘Society of the Snow’ Finds Hope in the Horror of Survival
The doomed flight of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 remains one of the most astonishing stories of real life survival horror the world has ever known. Often called “the Miracle in the Andes,” this harrowing tale begins with a plane crash that left 12 dead and 33 stranded among the snowy mountain peaks of Argentina. With only a week’s worth of food, those left alive after the first few days were forced to eat the bodies of their fallen companions to survive the brutal cold and inhospitable environment. With the world assuming them dead, Fernando ‘Nando’ Parrado, and Roberto Canessa eventually made a desperate trek through the treacherous mountain range with little more than clothing assembled from the wreckage and a homemade sleeping bag. 72 days after the initial disaster, sixteen survivors emerged from the mountains, dirty, starving, but determined to live.
This incredible story has been told many times in memoirs, documentaries and Frank Marshall’s 1993 epic Alive, but J.A. Bayona’s Netflix movie Society of the Snow brings new intimacy to the miracle. The breathtaking film chronicles this astonishing feat of endurance and courage while highlighting the quieter moments of hope and bravery that contributed to the rescue. Not only the story of the survivors, Bayona honors the horror and heroism of every person who lived and died on the mountain.
Most accounts of this hellish ordeal focus on the expeditionaries and their brave walk out of the mountains. Piers Paul Read’s Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors and Parrado’s own Miracle in the Andes (co-written by Vince Rause) rightfully celebrate this momentous journey out of death’s icy grip. However, it’s only a fraction of the tale. By focusing on the entire collection of survivors – both living and dead – Bayona presents the miracle as the accomplishment of a team rather than a handful of adventurous souls. The script is adapted from Pablo Vierci’s La sociedad de la nieve, which recounts the experiences of all sixteen survivors. Describing this choice to the Hollywood Reporter the director explained, “It’s the first time we’re telling the story of the whole society and that was very important.”
In his first Spanish language feature film since 2007’s The Orphanage, Bayona has recreated these harrowing events in astonishing detail. Amplified by more than 100 hours of interviews with living survivors, Bayona brings each catastrophic moment to life with reverence while avoiding the temptation to sensationalize. A cast assembled from mostly unknown Uruguayan actors creates an authenticity not seen in previous adaptations and several scenes were filmed at the actual crash site, allowing the audience to take in the 11,710 foot elevation and its deadly mix of beauty and isolation.
We meet the members of the Old Christians Club rugby union team shortly before boarding the ill-fated flight, setting up the complicated team dynamics and diverse personalities that will play out as the boys struggle to build community among the wreckage. Our narrator, Numa Turcatti (Enzo Vogrincic) is a promising young law student who reluctantly joins the trip when a friend frames it as a last hurrah before the responsibilities of adulthood. Though essentially uninjured in the crash, Numa finds himself unable to partake in cannibalism and eventually passes away when his body proves too weak to fight off infection. Having survived 60 days of freezing temperatures and starvation, Numa becomes the last survivor to die on the mountain – just ten days before rescue helicopters arrive. All of this information can be found in the numerous recountings of the disaster, but Bayona’s film sheds a unique light on the quiet heroism of this devastating story.
Vogrincic anchors the crew as the sensitive Numa, a quiet but poignant performance that draws us into the heart of this devastating tragedy. Matías Recalt unsettles as medical student Roberto Canessa with a nuanced portrayal that never lets us forget the dire stakes of their situation. Though he tries to maintain a steady air of authority and leadership, Recalt’s dark eyes convey an inner nihilism bubbling close to the surface. Though never quite sinister, one look at Roberto is enough to remind us that these young men are living day and night at the very edge of death. Agustín Pardella carries the group’s determination and ambition. As the restless Nando, his own eyes contain a desperate fire and the need to escape that drives the story forward.
Any film involving the consumption of human flesh is bound to provoke sensationalism, but Bayona treats cannibalism with the reverence it deserves. More than a singular decision, Numa shows the ongoing struggle to eat scraps of meat cut from corpses and the involuntary revulsion that would cause him to refuse this life-saving protein. Bayona also highlights the courageous role of the Strauch cousins, Eduardo (Rafael Federman), Fito (Esteban Kukuriczka), and Daniel (Francisco Romero) who took it upon themselves to harvest meat from the dead. Multiple survivors mention the gift of butchering the bodies with solemn secrecy that allowed them to eat without seeing the faces of their friends and loved ones. This small act of ongoing courage proves to be just as important to the survival of the group as Nando’s physical stamina and Roberto’s healing hands. It’s in these small moments that the film soars. Bayona does not diminish a single moment and even the act of openly weeping is presented as courageous rather than a sign of weakness or surrender.
Leaning on his background in horror, Bayona recreates this terrifying ordeal in excruciating detail. The devastating crash feels like a nightmare come to life as the mountain peaks grow closer to the plane’s windows. It’s difficult to breathe while watching the plane explode in midair then slide down the mountain as bodies fly out of the fuselage and the seats slide together to crush the passengers. Close shots capture every detail along with the destabilizing sensation of falling from the sky. Also horrific is the avalanche that flooded the fuselage with snow seventeen days later. Bayona brings out the horror of this stealthy disaster that killed another eight and left the survivors buried alive with their fallen friends. What follows are three days spent trapped underneath a raging blizzard with nothing to eat but the recently deceased. Just as unnerving is the chaos that follows. With intimate shots, rapidly moving cameras, and distorted lenses, Bayona captures the harrowing aftermath of these frightening events as those left alive frantically try to identify the injured and the dead. Just like the survivors, it takes the viewer several minutes to get their bearings as the horrifying reality floods our senses.
Though Bayona remains faithful to the timeline, even those well-versed in the historical events will find new intimacy to this retelling of the story. News that the search party has been called off now feels like a traumatic event rather than an uplifting call to action. The radio announcement telling the world which passengers have been listed among the survivors strikes a poignant contrast with the personal effects preserved from each of the crash’s many victims. The announcer’s joy at reading the name of his own son blends with the sorrow for those whose names were not on the list. Bayona honors each character that dies on the mountain, using the real names of the victims for the first time.
As one of the few survivors to mostly reject cannibalism, a story told through Numa’s eyes could easily take on a lofty or judgmental tone, but Bayona never casts shame and refuses to take a moral stance on what the survivors should or should not have done. This heartrending perspective provides an intimate glimpse into the decision to offer one’s own body as food. With the scripture “There is no greater love than that which gives one’s life for one’s friends,” Numa allows the people he will leave behind to view his sacrifice as a blessed gift rather than a sordid act of defilement. After his death, Numa continues to narrate the story carrying the voices of the victims alongside those of the survivors and reminding us that it’s only because they died that others were able to live. As the last to succumb, Numa becomes a bridge between death and life and the embodiment of everyone who boarded the plane but never returned.
Five decades after this harrowing ordeal, we’re seeing the story told like never before. With unflinching accuracy and a lack of judgment, Bayona presents these unbelievable events with a horrifying intimacy that proves even more hopeful because of its extreme brutality. By wrestling with survivor’s guilt and the weight of each choice, Bayona shows that every member of this elite society was heroic in their own way. Moments where the survivors reenter society and reunite with their loved ones do feel joyful and cathartic, but Bayona never lets us forget that 29 people did not return. Numa opens the film with the assertion that some call the crash a tragedy while others call it a miracle. Bayona refrains from leaning in either direction and reminds us that both can be true at the same time. Like the suitcase filled with effects of the dead, Society of the Snow is a beautiful monument to everyone who boarded the Fairchild FH-227D; those who made it back home and those who perished on the mountain.
Society of the Snow is now streaming on Netflix.
Expectations can run high whenever a buzzworthy filmmaker makes the leap from indie to mainstream. And Radio Silence — Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, Chad Villella and former member Justin Martinez — certainly had a lot to live up to after V/H/S. This production collective’s rousing contribution to the 2012 anthology film not only impressed audiences and critics, the same segment also caught the attention of 20th Century. This led to the studio recruiting the rising talent for a hush-hush found-footage project later titled Devil’s Due.
However, as soon as Radio Silence’s anticipated first film was released into the wild, the reactions were mostly negative. Devil’s Due was dismissed as a Rosemary’s Baby rehash but dressed in different clothes; almost all initial reviews were sure to make — as well as dwell on — that comparison. Of course, significant changes were made to Lindsay Devlin’s pre-existing script; directors Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett offered up more energy and action than what was originally found in the source material, which they called a “creepy mood piece.” Nevertheless, too many folks focused on the surface similarities to the 1968 pregnancy-horror classic and ignored much of everything else.
Almost exactly two years before Devil’s Due hit theaters in January of 2014, The Devil Inside came out. The divisive POV technique was already in the early stages of disappearing from the big screen and William Brent Bell’s film essentially sped up the process. And although The Devil Inside was a massive hit at the box office, it ended up doing more harm than good for the entire found-footage genre. Perhaps worse for Radio Silence’s debut was the strange timing of Devil’s Due; the better-received Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones was released earlier that same month. Despite only a superficial resemblance, the newer film might have come across as redundant and negligible to wary audiences.
Image: Allison Miller in Devil’s Due.
The trailers for Devil’s Due spelled everything out quite clearly: a couple unknowingly conceives a diabolical child, and before that momentous birth, the mother experiences horrifying symptoms. There is an unshakable sense of been-there-done-that to the film’s basic pitch, however, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett knew that from the beginning. To compensate for the lack of novelty, they focused on the execution. There was no point in hiding the obvious — in the original script, the revelation of a demonic pregnancy was delayed — and the film instead gives the game away early on. This proved to be a benefit, seeing as the directors could now play around with the characters’ unholy situation sooner and without being tied down by the act of surprise.
At the time, it made sense for Radio Silence’s first long feature to be shot in the same style that got them noticed in the first place, even if this kind of story does not require it. Still and all, the first-person slant makes Devil’s Due stand out. The urgency and terror of these expectant parents’ ordeal is more considerable now with a dose of verisimilitude in the presentation. The faux realism makes the wilder events of the film — namely those times the evil fetus fears its vessel is in danger — more effective as well. Obviously the set-pieces, such as Samantha pulling a Carrie White on three unlucky teens, are the work of movie magic, but these scenes hit harder after watching tedious but convincing stretches of ordinariness. Radio Silence found a solid balance between the normal and abnormal.
Another facet overlooked upon the film’s initial release was its performances. Booking legitimate actors is not always an option for found-footage auteurs, yet Devil’s Due was a big-studio production with resources. Putting trained actors in the roles of Samantha and Zach McCall, respectively Allison Miller and Zach Gilford, was desirable when needing the audience to care about these first-time parents. The leads managed to make their cursory characters both likable and vulnerable. Miller was particularly able to tap into Samantha’s distress and make it feel real, regardless of the supernatural origin. And with Gilford’s character stuck behind the camera for most of the time, the film often relied on Miller to deliver the story’s emotional element.
Image: Allison Miller in Devil’s Due.
Back then, Radio Silence went from making viral web clips to a full-length theatrical feature in a relatively short amount of time. The outcome very much reflected that tricky transition. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett indeed knew how to create these attention-grabbing scenes — mainly using practical effects — but they were still learning their way around a continuous narrative. The technical limitations of found footage hindered the story from time to time, such as this routine need to keep the camera on the main characters (or see things from their perspective) as opposed to cutting away to a subplot. There is also no explanation of who exactly compiled all this random footage into a film. Then again, that is an example of how the filmmakers strove for entertainment as opposed to maintaining every tradition of found footage. In the end, the directors drew from a place of comfort and familiarity as they, more or less, used 10/31/98 as the blueprint for Devil’s Due’s chaotic conclusion. That is not to say the film’s ending does not supply a satisfying jolt or two, but surely there were hopes for something different and atypical.
Like other big film studios at that time, 20th Century wanted a piece of the found-footage pie. What distinguished their endeavor from those of their peers, though, was the surprising hiring of Radio Silence. Needless to say, the gamble did not totally pay off, yet putting the right guys in charge was a bold decision. Radio Silence’s wings were not completely clipped here, and in spite of how things turned out, there are flashes of creativity in Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s unconventional approach to such a conventional concept.
Radio Silence has since bounced back after a shaky start; they participated in another anthology, Southbound, before making another go at commercial horror. The second time, as everyone knows, was far more fruitful. In hindsight, Devil’s Due is regarded as a hiccup in this collective’s body of work, and it is usually brought up to help emphasize their newfound success. Even so, this early film of theirs is not all bad or deserving of its unmentionable status. With some distance between then and now, plus a forgiving attitude, Devil’s Due can be seen as a fun, if not flawed first exposure to the abilities of Radio Silence. And, hopefully, somewhere down the line they can revisit the found-footage format.
Image: Allison Miller and Zach Gilford in Devil’s Due.
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