Jacqueline Toledo Soto ’24
Staff Writer
toledosotoj@lakeforest.edu
On October 13, 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed in the Andes mountains. The flight carried 40 passengers and five crew members, with only 16 survivors who had to endure two and a half months of harsh conditions before being rescued.
The recently released film The Society of the Snow takes you back to early 1970s Uruguay, where the opening shot focuses on a rugby game. The rugby team, along with family and friends, will board a plane that will alter their lives forever. The movie brings to life the harrowing events of the 1972 crash and is based on the book by journalist Pablo Vierci, who through exclusive interviews, details the events surrounding the crash.
The film’s director is J.A. Bayona, who also directed the 2018 movie Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and the 2016 fantasy movie A Monster Calls. J.A. Bayona went to the crash site and spent a night there to experience a bit of what the survivors went through.
In an interview with NPR, he stated, “I was there the same time of the year, so I was able to sleep there in a small camp and experience the altitude sickness, the sense of loneliness that you have there. And it was very impressive, you know? To me, I was very impressed not only by the sight of those mountains – this is the biggest mountain range on Earth – but also by the silence. When you are there, there’s nothing alive.”
The survivors decided to write their own experience of the crash in a book decades after the incident. Each of them have written about the event individually.
The cast included a mix of talented Argentinian and Uruguayan actors, including Enzo Vogrincic (Numa Turcatti), Agustín Pardella (Nando Prado), and Matías Recalt (Roberto Canessa). Each actor captured the survivor they were portraying perfectly, in my opinion. They portrayed the agony and frustration of being stuck in the Andes—feelings of sadness, fear, hunger, and, most importantly, friendship was portrayed on the screen. The movie will take you on an emotional rollercoaster, and you will find yourself wishing you could reach through the screen and help them out.
The film takes place in the Valley of Tears where the incident occurred in the Andes Mountains. However, the movie was filmed in Sierra Nevada, Spain, Montevideo, Uruguay, some parts of Chile and Argentina, and the crash site itself.
The movie does address the cannibalism that the survivors had to resort to in order to endure the freezing temperatures, high altitudes, and lack of food. If this is something that will trigger you, then I suggest skipping those parts. I want to point this out because it is something that everyone discusses when they watch this film. In fact, in some way, it has become the only thing some movie reviewers and watchers focus on. The movie is more than that; it describes with accurate detail how the survivors managed in such a harsh climate. The courage and perseverance it took each of them to not give up.
The movie captured my attention from beginning to end, and it was worth every minute. I have to say this movie was one of the best Netflix movies I have seen in a long time. I encourage you to watch this movie when you have free time.
Rating: Five Stars
Society of The Snow is now streaming on Netflix.
