J A Bayona’s Society of Snow, which hits Netflix today, is a Spanish-language retelling of the Uruguayan 1972 Andes flight disaster.
The critically acclaimed movie stunned at the Venice International Film Festival last year and has been shortlisted for Best International Feature Film at the Oscars this year.
On October 13, 1972, a flight chartered from Uruguay to Chile crashed in the Andes.
Of the 45 passengers and crew, 12 died on impact and seven more from injuries and the freezing climate.
Search efforts were called off after just over a week and for the next 72 days, the survivors suffered through exposure, starvation and avalanches, resulting in the death of 13 more of them. Most harrowing of all, those who remained alive resorted to cannibalism to survive.
As the weather improved in the late spring, two of the men climbed down the 15 ft mountain peak without any mountaineering gear, hiking for 10 days across 38 miles into Chile to find help.
On December 23 1972, two months after the crash, all the remaining 16 passengers were rescued.
Now Society of the Snow has arrived on Netflix, critics and audiences are praising the quality of the filmmaking but some have been left in tears at the “harrowing and terrifying” recreation of events.
One viewer wrote: “Netflix’s new movie Society of the Snow. I’ve never seen a plane crash so meticulously detailed onscreen.”
Another tweeted: “Society of the Snow, wow! Such a raw, harsh, anxious, claustrophobic movie. I felt the need to hit the pause button multiple times just to stretch a bit and relax.”
One admitted: “I’ll be damned if this didn’t move me to tears by the end. Harrowing af my goodness”, while another said, “Society of the Snow made me cry.”
A viewer praised the film: “One of the most unforgettable, harrowing & technically astounding films of the year!”
And another summed up: “Intense, harrowing, and often terrifying, SOCIETY OF THE SNOW is an incredible tale of survival, determination, and the human spirit. It’ll get more traction when it hits Netflix but it’s worth seeing on the big screen for the production. Brutal, but life-affirming stuff.”
Society of the Snow of the Snow is streaming now on Netflix.
