Society of the Snow

                
J.A. Bayona's Society of the Snow is the third and best feature film based on the story of Uruguayan Air Force flight 571 which crashed in the Andes in 1972. The passengers, mostly made up of a rugby team, were stranded for over two months and had to resort to cannibalism in order to survive. Bayona's film strengths are mainly on the technical level. The handling of the crash and a subsequent avalanche that besets the survivors are handled expertly. The constant use of close-ups, a bane of the current cinema, is for once appropriate here, as Bayona conveys the claustrophobia of the survivors huddling for warmth in the remains of the fuselage. 

What I didn't think succeeded was Bayona's attempt to graft humanistic uplift to this tale of survival. The film's attempts at characterization are haphazard. Only Enzo Vogrincic's Numa and Agustin Pardella's Nando emerge as successful portraits of individuals. The film's attempts to portray the decision to resort to cannibalism as an act of Christian solidarity and self-sacrifice seems dubious to this unobservant Catholic. The ritual of Communion, with its intimations of cannibalism and human sacrifice, is one that sought to channel man's attempts to appease an inscrutable deity with tangible offerings into a spiritual contemplation of mystical union. God gave his only son so we could cease slaughtering our own children (or the spare lamb) in His name. The cannibalism in Society of the Snow is, if you excuse the expression, overly tasteful. The religious angle provides an excuse for visual updates of the Pieta and the Last Supper. It does render the film into suitable family viewing if your Aunt Minnie is visiting. Currently streaming on Netflix.