About 30 years ago or so there was a film called Alive directed by Frank Marshall and written by John Patrick Shanley that came out about a Uruguayan rugby team that crashed and landed their plane in the Andes Mountains in South America. It’s based on the book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by author Piers Paul Read. JA Bayona, famous for directing his fair share of hit films, decided to remake this film thirty years later. It’s called Society of the Snow and it’s on Netflix later this month.

In 1972 a plane crashed in the Andes Mountains due to inclement weather. It had a Uruguayan rugby team aboard. There were a lot of deaths but quite a few people survived. That was just the beginning of their arduous ordeal though. Since they were close friends and so forth they had to find ways to keep warm in the cold weather on top of a mountain. Comfort and food were the two main things they thought about. Once these were gone things started to get dicey for the remaining Survivors of the plane crash.

With any film involving survival, you have to do things to make the audience watching cringe in some way. Throughout the course of the movie, there are various scenes of characters getting frostbite, gang green, and having limbs bleeding profusely. This adds a genuine parill to what these people are going through. Add in blizzards and avalanches during their 72-day nightmare and you can understand their situation. What they are going through isn’t for the lighthearted.

The Spanish director JA Bayona has had a decent run so far. He has tackled a lot of interesting subject matter in his career. One of which is The Impossible about a family that is on vacation in Thailand when a Tsunami hits. They have to deal with multiple obstacles before they eventually get back together in the end. That was a perfect practice round before doing this film. With everything that went on for these boys and their coaches and families involved in the plane crash, I can see how it would be hard to get this story right. Bayona is a pro now though and he handles everything exceptionally. 

One interesting thing about the film I thought was a bit strange was one character was narrating the entire film from his viewpoint. Without giving away spoilers this was odd. This choice by Bayona was one I didn’t expect. He was friends with the players but was relatively quiet and stayed to himself. Maybe that’s why there was a familiarity with the players, the families, and the coaches. Sometimes this sort of thing could backfire as he may not be a reliable narrator. In this case, it was fine. It didn’t hurt the overall story at all.

The best part of the film is its cinematography by Pedro Luque. Whatever cameras he was using brought the best out of this movie. The landscapes of the mountains and valleys as well as the cramped quarters inside the crashed plane were all shot impeccably. This is an amazing-looking film by anybody’s standards. The Mountains and various weather circumstances added an extra element as well. 

Another thing that I recall that was pretty incredible was the makeup and hair design. Bayona ensembles a lot of people to make the kids, coaches, and families look cold. They did something to the eyes of the characters as well. This was some pretty amazing makeup. Throw in all the blood and guts and severed limbs and you have some awards-worthy makeup and hairstyling. This may be good enough to get an Oscar nomination. 

Society of the Snow has a lord of the Flies vibe going on. It is a hierarchy within the story once the plane crashes, all parental figures and adults telling the kids what to do are on the outs. The combination of the cinematography and the makeup and hairstyling gave the film an authenticity and realistic aspect. Bayone has tackled similar subject matter before but this one lacked the extra level of trouble I felt The Impossible had. That being said, it’s still good and is going to give people major problems as the winter has started here in the States and the holidays have a lot of flying. I would want to fly after seeing this film or for that matter travel to a cold climate. This movie made me cold the entire time I was watching it. Netflix has another winner on their hands though.

3 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen