Film / Society of the Snow

"There is no greater love than to give one’s life for friends."

Society of the Snow (Spanish: La Sociedad de la Nieve) is a 2023 Spanish-language survival drama directed by J.A. Bayona (The Impossible, The Orphanage). It tells the true story of Uruguayan Air Force flight 571, which crashed on a glacier on the Andes mountains in October 1972 while en route to Santiago, Chile. 12 people died in the crash, including the pilots. The other 33 were left stranded in an unknown area of perpetual snow and no vegetation, without supplies or survival training. The survivors, many of them members of a rugby team traveling for a match, their friends and relatives, had to work together in order to survive their harsh surroundings. And most were so young that this was their first travel abroad and had never seen snow before in their life.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because the movie is based on the same true events that inspired the 1976 Mexican film Survive! and the 1993 American film Alive, this time adapted from the book The Snow Society: The Definitive Account of the World’s Greatest Survival Story (2009) by Uruguayan journalist and author Pablo Vierci. But where Survive! was basically an Exploitation Film focused on the most sensational aspects of the story, and Alive was an adventure film that highlighted the Heroic Spirit of the survivors that ultimately made it out of the tragedy, Society of the Snow is a somber drama built as a tribute to those who didn't.

The film premiered theatrically in Uruguay on December 13th, 2023 and in the US on December 22nd, before being released on Netflix internationally on January 4th, 2024.

The film was chosen as Spain's submission for Best International Feature at the 96th Academy Awards, and ultimately received a nomination in the category, as well as another nod for Best Makeup and Hairstyling.

Given that the crash and the events following it are well known, spoilers are unmarked.

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This film provides examples of:

• 13 Is Unlucky: The plane crashing in Andes mountains happens on Friday the 13th.
• The '70s: Set in 1972. Era-appropriate hair and fashion are abundant, especially in the opening scenes before the crash.
• Artistic License – History:
  • Unlike what is shown in the film, the plane didn’t crash on the Andes on the flight that parted from Montevideo on October 12th, they had to spend a night in Mendoza because of bad weather before taking off again on October 13th.
  • In real life, Nando didn’t wake from his coma out of luck. At first, he slept through the whole first night resting in a pile of snow which unintentionally helped to keep his brain from swelling, and in the following days, fellow survivor and medicine student Diego Storm noticed his wounds and breathing had gotten better, so he decided to give him blankets and sleep next to him to keep him warm.
  • Unlike in the film, the radio set was not powerful enough to allow all survivors to hear it at once. Marcelo Pérez was the first to hear that the search had been called off and he wanted to keep it secret from most survivors in order to keep morale high, until Gustavo “Coco” Nicolich told them.
  • Before the crash, Carlitos stands up from his seat and makes a Tempting Fate joke about the captain telling the passage that they are going to land on the Andes. While not unanimously identified, this person is generally agreed to have been Gastón Costemalle or some other fatal victim of the disaster, while Carlitos survived it.
  • The half-crushed co-pilot's parting words for the survivors are to wish for God to be with them. According to the survivors, in real life he asked for his suitcase so he could use a gun inside to commit suicide.
  • In real life, the avalanche buried the plane while the survivors were asleep, rather than making payadas.
  • Numa injures his foot from accidentally cutting it on glass while trying to kick open a window after the avalanche. In reality, his leg was injured from someone accidentally stepping on him while trying to walk to the plane's exit at night to relieve himself.
  • Nando and Canessa spent an extra night atop mount Seler, before Canessa finally agreed to accompany Nando on the hike to Chile.
  • In real life, Sergio Catalán only brought the pen and paper the next day after meeting Nando and Canessa. By that time, Roberto was really weak, so only Nando was by the river when he wrote the note.
  • The survivor’s list is not read in the same order as it was originally in 1972.
  • The real life rescue took place in two days. The first day had bad weather, and the plan was to send a rescue team with provisions and extract the survivors the next day. In reality, six survivors reached the helicopter and got on, while eight stayed behind with the rescue team until the next day.
• Beauty Is Bad: The survivors remark that the Andean scenery is beautiful to look at, but Hell to live in.
• Big Brother Instinct: Right after waking up from a coma, Nando learns that the plane crashed, his mother died and his younger sister is gravely injured. Immediately and with barely a word, he goes to embrace her and remains there until she dies. He then buries her with his own hands.
• Big "NO!": Marcelo screams this upon after hearing on the radio that the search had been called off.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: After an avalanche buries the group alive and kills eight more survivors, Numa's narration states that this all happened on his 25th birthday.
• Bittersweet Ending: The remaining survivors are rescued and return home, but are left forever changed by their experiences, and many of their family and friends are dead.
• Blood from the Mouth: The co-pilot keeps vomiting blood during his short time alive after the crash.
• Body Horror: Plenty to go around. The real miracle is that it doesn't come across as exploitative as Survive!, somehow.
  • When the plane comes to a sudden stop, the seats break and are propelled forward, crushing people and bending their legs like twigs.
  • After recovering from his coma, Nando's eyes remain black (the signs of a skull fracture) for several more days.
  • The survivors with broken legs develop ugly sores on their back due to being immobilized.
  • By the end, the plane's surroundings are littered with human rib cages and pelvic bones.
  • The emaciated state of the survivors after being admitted to the hospital, when they are little more than skin and bones.
  • The co-pilot is crushed against the plane controls but still alive, vomiting blood and covered by snow.
• Book Ends:
  • In the scene where he's introduced, Numa's friends pass a note meant for him while they sit in church. After he has died, his friends once again pass a note among themselves, this time written by Numa himself.
  • Numa's narration first introduces him by stating "My name is Numa Turcatti". After his death he introduces himself again with "My name is Numa", since the audience has come to know him personally as much as the other survivors, who were originally strangers to him.
  • An early scene shows the rugbiers in peak physical condition taking a shower after a match. At the end, the emaciated survivors are helped to shower in the hospital. Both scenes are shot from the same angle, highlighting how much weight they have lost.
• Bring Help Back: After Numa's death, Nando and Roberto decide to hike across the mountains to Chile to find help. Tintin goes as well, but when it turns out the journey will take ten days longer, he goes back in order for the food to last longer for the other two.
• Buried Alive: At one point, an avalanche occurs, burying the survivors for four days.
• Christianity is Catholic: Most, if not all of the people on the plane are Catholic (which is justified given that Uruguay has a very large Catholic population, and most of the passengers are friends who go to the same church), and many find their faith tested over the course of their ordeal.
• Cigarette of Anxiety: The day after the crash, Fito notices Numa has a box of cigarettes and immediately asks him for one.
• Compressed Adaptation:
  • On the hike down, Nando and Canessa find a lizard, only to turn around and see Sergio Catalán. In real life there were three days between one event and the other. Catalán also left them with some bread for a couple of days while he rode back for help, as he couldn't help them cross the river.
  • In real life, the helicopters didn't have enough space to carry all survivors at once, so they took one half and the others had to wait one night more while in the company of four rescuers. In the movie they all board at the same time.
  • The movie cuts the plane's overnight layover in Mendoza, Argentina, giving the misleading impression that the departure from Uruguay and the crash occurred on the same day.
  • In the movie, Arturo Nogueira dies on the 36th day. Numa, Nando, Roberto and Tintin then depart to walk out, but Numa turns back on his own because of his injured foot. The other three continue and discover the tail. In reality, Arturo died on the 34th day. Numa, Nando, Roberto and Tintin departed later that day but all four turned back together due to the bad weather. They then waited two days for the weather to improve, during which it was decided Numa should remain behind. The other three departed again on the 36th day and discovered the tail.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: The decision to eat the dead is controversial; not everyone is willing to do so, and the removal of the 'meat' is done away from the others. Eventually however they're forced to stop caring about such niceties and eventually become indifferent.
• Cool Old Guy: Javier, the oldest of the survivors, who gives Numa a pep talk when the latter complains that his injury makes him feel helpless.
• Creator Cameo: Pablo Vierci plays the reporter who gives the news of Nando and Roberto being found.
• A Day in the Limelight: The movie follows Numa Turcatti as the main character, while most media adaptations of the story center around Nando Parrado. This was expressly requested by interviewed survivors, who felt Numa should be the main character because of how beloved he was, how much he contributed to the group's survival, and how media portrayals tended to sideline him. Becomes A Death in the Limelight when it is revealed that Numa was the last to die before the survivors were rescued and that his is a Posthumous Narration.
• Death by Irony: Numa, the main character, as well as one of the strongest and most proactive survivors, dies of a small cut in his foot after being severely weakened by hunger and lack of care, just 12 days before his companions are rescued.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Because of the choice to focus on Numa, other survivors feel like this when compared to their portrayals in other media. Liliana Methol probably gets it the worst, as the film doesn't include her role as volunteer nurse and unofficial "mother" of the group beyond trying to help a panicking Moncho (though Word of God says more was shown in a Deleted Scene). Here she's only memorable for being the longest surviving female and The Lost Lenore to Javier after her death. Additionally, Daniel Maspons, Enrique Platero and Diego Storm are practically reduced to background extras compared to previous adaptations. In contrast, Nando and Canessa retain enough screentime to be considered deuteragonists.
  • The inside of the cockpit is never shown except through an open door until after the crash, so the pilot Julio Ferradas barely appears in the film. Additionally, the steward Ovidio Ramirez and navigator Ramon Martinez appear to have been cut from the film entirely and are only seen as dead bodies several days after the crash.
• Despair Event Horizon: After hearing the search had been called off and no one is coming to rescue them, many of the survivors cross it and Freak Out. It is after this that Marcelo encourages his followers to eat the dead if they are to survive.
• Determinator: Right after waking up from a three-day coma, Nando immediately goes to comfort his sister and when she dies, he states that the place is a cemetery and he's going to leave or die trying. He ultimately succeeds walking all the way to Chile and rescuing the remaining survivors.
• Did Not Think This Through: After learning that the search had been called off, Numa, Gustavo, and Daniel Maspons set off to find the plane's tail without any equipment. They end up almost freezing to death during the night and Gustavo gets snow blinded.
• Due to the Dead:
  • The very movie itself, due to its choice to focus on the dead who didn't feature a lot in previous adaptations of the disaster.
  • Within the movie, the survivors keep mementos of the victims in a special case that they refuse to leave behind when the oblivious rescuers tell them to, and solemnly bury their flesh when they no longer need it to survive.
  • The names and ages of all the characters that die in the movie are shown on the screen. This starts with those that died in the initial crash, then is followed by those who die over the course of the film, or, in the case of the victims sucked out with the tail of the plane, when their corpses are discovered by the survivors.
• Dwindling Party: Several members of passage die when the plane's tail breaks, then when the plane crashes, an avalanche buries the wreck, and finally due to starvation and lack of medical care while waiting for the thaw.
• Everybody Smokes: Everybody is seen smoking at least once, except for Canessa, Nando and Tintín.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: The plane crashes in a place and time of the year too cold to grow plants or animals. Everything is a threat after another: cold, altitude sickness, lack of food and medical care, etc. Only with the thaw do the survivors see another form of life, but it is a condor, a carrion bird...
• Extreme Omnivore: Desperate for food, but not wanting to eat the dead, some of the players attempt to eat shoelaces and cigarettes.
• Face Death with Dignity: Numa goes to his death peacefully, telling his friends to use his body if they must and that he is happy that they will make it home.
• Fan Disservice: The final scene where the survivors are showered at the hospital. Their butts and genitals are in full display, unlike in the post-match shower scene at the beginning of the movie, but right now show signs of malnutrition and look thin and emaciated.
• Fight to Survive: The desperate struggle of the survivors of the plane crash, trapped high up in the Andes Mountains.
• Foreshadowing: Before the trip, Numa attends mass with his family. The priest recalls Jesus being in the desert for 40 days and being tempted by Satan for his lack of food; then he speaks about him giving his flesh to his disciples in the Holy Communion, his death and resurrection. All happen to survivors of the crash: they starve, but choose to help others over themselves, and some die so others can feed on their flesh and come back to a civilization that had written them off as casualties.
• From Bad to Worse:
  • After a few weeks of having to endure the freezing cold and eating the dead bodies of friends, an avalanche occurs, burying the survivors and killing eight of them. Then when they've finished digging out the survivors, another avalanche hits and buries their shelter for several days.
  • The three men selected to try walking out make it to the top of the mountain, only to find they're right in the middle of the Andes.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Initially, the Strauch cousins cut the flesh from the bodies while out of everyone else's sight. But as days pass everyone becomes Conditioned to Accept Horror, and nonchalantly lives among littered human bones in the wreckage.
• The Heart: Numa, both in the film and real life.
• The Hero Dies: Numa is the last survivor to die before rescue.
• Heroic BSoD: Happens to Numa after he is forced to turn back from the expedition due to his leg injury, as he starts to feel useless.
• Hero Insurance: Discussed when the survivors are arguing whether to eat the dead and worry that they might be prosecuted for it (legal precedent says you won't be, provided the victim is already dead). One of them compares it to organ donation, but it's pointed out that this needs prior consent from the donor. As a result, they start giving each other consent to eat their bodies if they die.
• Hope Spot: Almost every time the characters think their situation is going to be improved it turns out to be a false alarm and just more problems. Search planes pass nearby but don't see them, the tail is not where they think it is, and when they do find it out of pure luck the plane's radio cannot be hooked up to the tail's batteries despite them being intact.
• Horror Hunger: The survivors spend a few days eating nothing at all, during which they try rock lichens, shoelaces, and scabs. Finally they bring themselves to discuss the need of eating the dead, but some like Marcelo, the Methols, and Numa still refrain from it for a few days more.
• I Am a Humanitarian: The most infamous aspect of the real case - the survivors were forced to butcher and eat the bodies of the dead as they depleted their meager supplies and no help was coming.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Bobby François sits on a case and takes a gulp from a liquor bottle that he finds right after the crash.
• The Lost Lenore: Javier becomes depressed after the death of Liliana in the avalanche, but ultimately feels he has to live in order to share the love he still has for her with their children.
• Luck-Based Search Technique: A group climbs the mountain to find the tail section which has batteries they believe can power the aircraft radio, but they're unable to find it. Turns out the impact threw it across the valley to the opposite side, and it's only discovered on the initial attempt to walk out. Though it holds some food supplies that last them a short time, they can't get the radio to work and so have to try again to walk out.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • After the crash Numa has a moment of Shell-Shock Silence until he releases his seatbelt. As he's hanging upside down, he falls to what's now the floor into the midst of the other moaning and screaming survivors.
  • While waiting out a blizzard, the survivors are having a rhyming competition to keep their morale up. Suddenly the shelter starts shaking and they're hit by an avalanche.
• MacGyvering: The survivors hook up a small radio to the plane's antenna to get information from the exterior. They also make sleds, digging tools, and funnels to get water from the plane's fuselage; knives from window glass, a barrier against the wind from suitcases and clothes, and even sunglasses to avoid snow blindness.
• Never Sleep Again: During the terrifying first night, the survivors tell one another to not fall asleep so they don't freeze to death.
• No One Could Survive That!: Played for Drama. At one point, the survivors hear on the radio that the search for the plane has been suspended until the spring, ending with the reasoning that none of 43 previous air crashes into the Andes through history had survivors, so this one shouldn't.
• No Party Like a Donner Party: As in real life, the survivors of the crash are forced to eat their friends and family to stay alive.
• Nothing but Skin and Bones: The state of the survivors after two months in the high, cold mountain without food.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Tintín, Moncho, Bobby, Pancho, Fito and Coche are all known only by their nickname up until the scene where Carlitos’s father reads the name of the survivors, where their real names are disclosed.
• Posthumous Narration: For those unfamiliar with the real-life event, Numa is revealed to have been doing this all along, dying 10 days before the rest of the men are rescued.
• Power Trio: The Strauch Cousins.
• Real-Person Cameo:
  • Nando Parrado appears early in the film, opening the airport’s front door to the actors portraying him and his family.
  • Jose Luis “Coche” Inciarte appears in the bar scene, behind Numa and his friends, reading a newspaper.
  • Both Ramón “Moncho” Sabella and Antonio “Tintín” Vizintín appear at the airport as background characters.
  • Daniel Fernández appears in the church, more specifically, in the left front row.
  • Carlitos Páez portrays his own father, Carlos Páez Vilaró, who reads the list of survivors over the radio and then greets the movie's Carlitos as he disembarks from the rescue helicopter.
  • Roberto Canessa appears as a doctor, escorting the movie’s Canessa into the hospital amidst the crowd of reporters.
  • Gustavo Zerbino appears as a rugby coach, but his scenes were cut.
  • Numa Turcatti's nephew appears as the neighbor who he greets while entering his house.
• Shown Their Work: Bayona called the survivors to consult multiple times while making the movie. Also, the actors either got in contact with the survivor they played, or the family of the victim they portrayed. As a result there are many details that are hardly going to be noticed or understood by most people (e.g. Numa's home in the movie is Numa's real home, the man that salutes him is a cameo by Numa's nephew).
• Sickening "Crunch!": There is a very disturbing crunch sound on the soundtrack, as a passenger's leg snaps when seats are smashed together during the crash.
• Snow Means Death:
  • Small snowflakes flow into the plane after the tail breaks and remain during the terrible first night when the most injured survivors died. They aren't as noticeable afterward - de jure because the 'suitcase wall' is better at insulating the plane, but the meaning is there.
  • The co-pilot is found crushed between his seat and the controls panel, bleeding and covered by snowflakes while he shivers and begs for water. He doesn't last long.
  • The first night in the crashed plane focuses on a badly injured passenger, Pancho Abal, begging for help, then cuts to his body frozen on the spot.
  • Nando buries his sister in the snow and states that he's leaving because the place is a cemetery.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The radio broadcast that devastates the survivors, informing that search parties are over and that they are presumed dead, is followed by a cheesy commercial about bikes, highlighting that the outside world has moved on from their disappearance.
• Sole Survivor: Downplayed. Carlos Roque is the only member of the crew that survives initially. Sadly, he later dies in the avalanche, along with 7 other victims.
• The Speechless: Sergio Catalán never speaks in the film.
• Truer to the Text: Compared to other filmed versions of the disaster, being filmed in the Spanish language with actual Uruguayan actors and with the backdrop of the real crash site CGI'd into the background, as well as being the first to use the real names of the victims.