Society of the Snow ★★★½

SOCIETY of the Snow is the second major film dramatisation of the Andes plane crash and aftermath in 1972.

I barely recall Frank Marshall’s Alive, released in 1993, which had a good reception at the time but is rarely talked about.

Why I’m not sure, but this new Spanish version may cause people to search out the earlier version.

In 1972, a Uruguayan Air Force plane was chartered by a rugby team to fly them to Chile. Friends and some family members of the team were also onboard.

The plane crashed in a remote area of the Andes mountains killing many on impact while others died later from their injuries and the terrible conditions.

The survivors were faced with freezing temperatures at night, no radio communications and, worst of all, limited supplies of food and fresh water.

As the days stretched into weeks, hope that they would be rescued slowly diminished.

With all their food gone, those remaining took the extremely difficult moral decision to eat the dead.

It’s an incredible story of survival and sacrifice, given greater depth by the fact many of the survivors were devout Christians forced to decide whether to interfere with a person’s journey to their God.

Spanish writer/director J. A. Bayona made his name with horror film The Orphanage back in 2007 but since then his American studio output has been mixed.

Society of the Snow demonstrates strong command of all the technical aspects and story-telling and may be his best film to date.

The relatively unknown cast perform well and the handling of the cannibalism is quite sensitive.

Perhaps the film’s only failings are it’s a little too long and ignores the moral questioning and emotional impacts that the survivors had to face on their return.

Watched on Netflix.