How to ensure that a known, real story, which has already had documentaries and fiction films, can capture new – and old – viewers. Because the public is renewed, of course, but in order not to copy you have to innovate.
The Catalan JA Bayonawhich Hollywood jumped from Spain, and already has behind it The impossible y Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdomopted for a different point when it came to telling the survival story of the Old Christian Uruguayan rugby players, their family and friends who were on the plane that fell in the Andes mountain range on October 13, 1972.
The thing is makes the voices of the survivors coexist with those who died. And Bayonne in The Snow Society goes further, making Numa Turcatti (Enzo Vogrincic), one of the deceased, the main narrator of this collective film.
The accident itself is a shocking scene – the noise of the crash, the sound of bones breaking – but it does not escape what has already been seen in, for example, They live! (1993), by Frank Marshall, with Ethan Hawke as Nando Parrado.
And Nando (Agustín Pardella) will be the first to say that he refuses to die, with frozen bodies…
Cannibalism
And what will follow will be terrible, but Bayona does not fall into sensationalism by showing how the survivors agree to eat human flesh, from their own companions, because otherwise they would die. The images are careful and not shocking, and there is a debate as to whether what they will do is morally accepted, or even if it is a sin (many of the protagonists are religious).
As the days go by, Bayona combines the desperation of the survivors, who do not know how much longer they will be precisely that, and the action scenes, which involve new deaths, some due to an avalanche while they took shelter as best they could in the fuselage of the flight. 571 of the Uruguayan Air Force.
The problem you have The Snow Society (we will explain the reason for the title) is its extension. There are two and a half hours that could have been shortened with a more dynamic edition and made the screening more bearable. Because the repetition of the deaths – when they occur, each one has a sign on the screen with her name and her age – instead of moving people, they achieve the opposite purpose.
Especially when one already knows what will happen, how Nando and Roberto Canessa (Matías Recalt), after walking for ten days, see a baqueano in Chile.
The Snow Society It is the one that united the living and the dead, endorsed by a character who knows that he is going to die, and gives permission for them to eat from his body.
There aren’t many familiar faces, although Vogrincic was Rivera in Iosi, the repentant spyand is among the Argentine actors Esteban Bigliardi. There was a small team that filmed in the place where the events took place, but the vast majority was filmed in other mountains, in the Sierra Nevada, in Spain, and at 2,000 meters above sea level.
Netflix is doing a huge promotional campaign, which has already helped it achieve a Golden Globe nomination for best foreign film, and it will go for the Oscar because it is the representative of Spain. Something that, most likely, you will also achieve.
“The Snow Society”
Drama. Spain / United States / Uruguay / Chile. 145′, SAM 16. Of: JA Bayona. Con: Matías Recalt, Enzo Vogrinci, Rafael Federman, Esteban Bigliardi. Salas: Lorca, Cine Arte Cacodelphia, Atlas Caballito, Patio Bullrich and Nordelta, Multiplex Belgrano, Cinema Devoto.