Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for ‘Society of the Snow’
How does one end a story likeSociety of the Snow? How does one end a tale so well-known, especially for its grittier details? Perhaps most importantly, how does one enda real story when telling it in a fictionalized format? Well, the most obvious answer is, of course, with the truth.The story of the survivors of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 ends with 16 young men being rescued from their ordeal in the icy mountains of the Andes and taken back home to their families.That is the truth. However, the truth has many facets: there are many different ways of looking at facts, and that’s how versions of the same story differ from one another. What do we call what happened to the members of the Old Christians rugby team and their supporters? Was it a miracle or a tragedy? Are they heroes or merely unfortunate souls who were forced to do the unthinkable to survive? Maybe all of these things are true at the same time.
In the final scenes ofJ.A. Bayona’sSociety of the Snow, the latest in a series of movies about Flight 571 that includes 1976’sSurvive!and 1993’sAlive, we hear the voice ofEnzo Vogrincicas Numa Turcatti. The last survivor of the plane crash that stranded the Old Christians team in the Andes in 1972 to die before rescue arrived, Numa serves as the narrator of the film, relaying the story of his friends and acquaintances with care. By the end, he asks us about the meaning of everything that happened, harkening back to a conversation between him and Javier Methol (Esteban Bigliardi) about the lack of sense that permeates the deaths of so many people. In the scene, Javier talks about the recent loss of his wife, Liliana (Paula Baldini), buried alive by a snowstorm. He talks about loving her and needing to survive to take all of that love to their children.
It’s a touching moment, but the meaning that Javier finds in Liliana’s death is not the same meaning that the other survivors derive from their plight. Each of them has their own version of events, not in the sense that they remember things differently, but in thateach of them has their own way of relating to the fate that befell them. Likewise, so do viewers.When Numa says that “only you’re able to give it meaning," he’s talking to his friends, the ones that survived, but he’s also talking to the audience. So, in the end, what kind of meaning can we attribute to the events ofSociety of the Snow?
Society of the Snow
In 1972, the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, chartered to fly a rugby team to Chile, catastrophically crashes on a glacier in the heart of the Andes. Only 29 of the 45 passengers survived the crash and finding themselves in one of the world’s toughest environments, they are forced to resort to extreme measures to stay alive.
What Happens at the End of ‘Society of the Snow’?
The end ofSociety of the Snoweffectively begins with the group’s second expedition to try and get away from their crash site to find help. In the movie, following an avalanche that claimed the lives of eight of the survivors of the disaster, Numa tags along with Roberto Canessa (Matías Recalt), Nando Parrado (Augustín Pardella), and Antonio Vizintín (Augustín Della Corte) in an expedition to the Argentinian side of the mountain range. Unable to face the cold in all its intensity—temperatures in the Andes can reach as low as 40 below zero—and delayed by the growing infection on Numa’s wounded leg, the party returns to the crash site soon after, having, however, found the other half of the plane that had been split open when it hit the mountains.
Finding the rest of the debris and the bodies gives the survivors a bit more energy to go on. Not only are they able to confirm the deaths of their disappeared friends, but bags of food and electrical parts give them hope for survival for at least another few days. More importantly, however, pieces of the insulation from the plane’s rear present the opportunity to fashion a makeshift sleeping bag for future expeditions. Despite some more desperate nay-sayers, hope abounds.
But hope is not enough to keep everyone alive. Slowly, those whose injuries are more serious begin to die: Arturo Nogueira (Fernando Contigiani) and Rafael Echevarren (Benjamín Segura) pass away from their infected wounds, and, a few days later, so does Numa. Dead in his sleep, he’s found the next morning by his teammates clutching a note that says“There is no greater love than to give one’s life for friends.”
Encouraged by Numa’s note,Nando, Canessa, and Vizintín—called Tintín by his friends—decide to go on another expedition the following morning, this time to the Chilean side of the mountains.They hope to find a village, a military outpost, or just any semblance of civilization that might mean that their plight is over. So, on their 61st day after crashing in the Andes, the three depart in search of help. Sadly, upon reaching the top of the mountain, they find nothing but more wilderness. In the distance, though, brownish peaks and some greenery suggest the existence of a valley, and so Nando decides to move forward. Feeling that continuing might mean their inevitable death, Canessa is initially doubtful. However, he eventually agrees to push through the mountains with his friend. For the food to last them for a few more days, the trio decides that Tintín will return to the crash site and deliver the news to their fellow survivors.
How Are the Survivors Rescued in ‘Society of the Snow’?
Nando and Canessa do indeed reach the valley. As a matter of fact, they reach something much more important: people. The duo happens upon a river where they stop to drink fresh water. On the other side of the stream, they see a man: Sérgio Catalán (Ezequiel Fadel Hinojosa), the most famous of the group of Chilean farmers who ran into Nando and Canessa in real life.Catalán throws them a rock with a piece of paper tied to it, upon which Canessa writes a note explaining who they are and asking for help.
The news of the existence of survivors of Flight 571 quickly reaches Chilean authorities, who send helicopters and medical staff to aid the young men.In reality, it took the 14 survivors who stayed at the crash site two days to be rescued.In the movie, however, they are all taken to safety by a couple of helicopters in a single day. Among them, stands out Gustavo Zerbino (Tomas Wolf), who refuses to board the helicopter without his suitcase, which carries not only his belongings, but also those of his deceased friends — a reminder that he will never leave them behind, no matter what.
‘Society of the Snow’ Review: A Gripping Take on a Devastating True Story
Technically immersive if a little narratively shaky at times, the year in cinema is still not complete until you see this film.
The men are all taken to get medical care in Chilean facilities, where they are reunited with their loved ones. Reporters and regular, curious folk surround them everywhere they go, speaking of miracles and heroism, but Numa’s narration reminds us that they do not feel like heroes. They cannot understand how they survived when others didn’t. In a previous scene, the mother of a survivor calls what happened to him a miracle. Allowing himself to be covered in kisses, but still skeptical, he replies “What miracle?” In a few words, Bayona’s film throws away the two most common positive narratives about the so-called “miracle of the Andes”:there is no heroism to be found in the action of these young men; there is also no religious meaning.So what on Earth is there?
‘Society of the Snow’ Avoids Giving Viewers Easy Answers
It’s hard to say.Society of the Snowalso does its best not to force-feed easy answers to its viewers. The most prevalent negative narrative about the disaster—the sensationalized story of the young men who had to eat human flesh to remain alive—is also not the movie’s main focus. It’s not brushed off, of course: Bayona’s camera captures with kindness and understanding their moments of doubt and unease about feeding on the corpses of people that they knew, and the director is also careful to show the moments in which they give away their bodies in the event of their deaths. And, in the end,that is what is at the center ofSociety of the Snow: the community - thesociety- that formed in the aftermath of that fateful plane crash.
A criticism that can be made aboutSociety of the Snowis that its lack of a main character makes it hard for viewers to connect with the drama that is taking place on screen. However, the story ofSociety of the Snowhas no main character, and to give it one would be more than just a little unfaithful to reality. The protagonist ofSociety of the Snowis a collective. The movie is not about a person, but about a group that managed to survive in the face of an unspeakable tragedy and how they came together as one to ensure that at least some of them would make it out alive to tell their tale. It is a movie about unity, about friendship, and love in the face of extreme hardship. The survivors of Flight 571 are not heroes, nor are they blessed by some divine power: they are simply men who joined forces with others who did not make it to survive.
In the final shots ofSociety of the Snow, we see the faces of the survivors, their eyes marked not by courage, but by weakness after facing so many horrors, by sadness and longing for those who died along the way. Accompanying a shot showing the survivors sitting side by side at the hospital—a shot that parallels the picture of the entire traveling party before they boarded Flight 571—Numa tells them to “Keep taking care of each other." There are, the movie seems to say, many meanings that can be derived from what happened to the young men of the Old Christians rugby team and their supporters, butthe most important of them all is that we must always look after those who are by our side.
Society of the Snowis available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.
