DIRECTOR: J.A. BAYONA
STARRING: ENZO VOGRINCIC, AGUSTIN PARDELLA, MATIAS RECALT, DIEGO VEGEZZI, TOMAS WOLF
RUNNING TIME: 2 HRS 24 MINUTES
The flight of a rugby team crashes on a glacier in the Andes. The few passengers who survive the crash find themselves in one of the world's toughest environments to survive.
STARRING: ENZO VOGRINCIC, AGUSTIN PARDELLA, MATIAS RECALT, DIEGO VEGEZZI, TOMAS WOLF
RUNNING TIME: 2 HRS 24 MINUTES
The flight of a rugby team crashes on a glacier in the Andes. The few passengers who survive the crash find themselves in one of the world's toughest environments to survive.
FILM REVIEW:
(This review contains spoilers.)
"What happens when the world deserts you?"
Society of the Snow is the International Feature submission for Spain. The Andes is a very large mountain range which extends along the South American continent. It’s 8,500 km long with an average altitude between 3,000 and 4,000 metres above sea level. The Aconcagua is the highest peak with nearly 7,000 metres. This big natural wall causes extreme turbulences, severe in certain occasions due to a phenomenon called Mountain Wave. These waves are generated when strong winds flowing toward mountains in a generally perpendicular fashion are raised up over the mountains. And the result is that this part of the world is one of the hardest flight paths to cross for any plane.
The film takes place in 1972 in Montevideo. The members of the Old Christians Club rugby team have decided to charter a plane to a match in Chile. This trip feels like a final hurrah, as many of the team members are in their early 20s and are now moving onto their next stage in life, either furthering their education, or moving into new jobs, new relationships and into adulthood. It is their final trip together as a team, as classmates, as friends. 19 members of the team have decided to board the plane, along with their families, supporters and friends.
They have set their trip for October 13, 1972, Flight 571. Before boarding the plane, the 45 passengers and crew members pose for a photo in front of the plane. They’re vibrant, excited, energetic and ready for their next adventure. It isn’t long after takeoff where things start to grow wrong. From the moment turbulence consumes the rugby team’s aircraft, their physical and emotional anguish takes center stage. The plane crash is shown in terrifying detail, cutting between shattered limbs, ankles breaking and punctured organs at the moment of impact. The plane has fallen apart and has crashed in the middle of the Andes mountains in western Argentina, just east of the border with Chile. With the dead surrounding the survivors, the remaining passengers must now fight for survival.
The film is much more than just a brutal recreation of the tragedy known as the Miracle of the Andes. It's also an existentialist tale about friendship, faith, and the moral boundaries that collapse in a life-or-death situation. This formidable production is not so much about getting to know every factual detail of the story, which many viewers will already be familiar with, as it is about understanding its devastating human ramifications. The film is spectacularly beautiful to watch, it is extremely difficult to understand how anyone could survive these conditions, and it showcases the strength of working as one rather than individuals.
Starving, surrounded by their dead loved ones, many of whom they then had to eat, and being unbroken enough psychologically to set out for help, this true story in a forbidding landscape, a society built in the snow, shows the true story of these brave individuals who would die trying to survive.
REVIEW: A
(This review contains spoilers.)
"What happens when the world deserts you?"
Society of the Snow is the International Feature submission for Spain. The Andes is a very large mountain range which extends along the South American continent. It’s 8,500 km long with an average altitude between 3,000 and 4,000 metres above sea level. The Aconcagua is the highest peak with nearly 7,000 metres. This big natural wall causes extreme turbulences, severe in certain occasions due to a phenomenon called Mountain Wave. These waves are generated when strong winds flowing toward mountains in a generally perpendicular fashion are raised up over the mountains. And the result is that this part of the world is one of the hardest flight paths to cross for any plane.
The film takes place in 1972 in Montevideo. The members of the Old Christians Club rugby team have decided to charter a plane to a match in Chile. This trip feels like a final hurrah, as many of the team members are in their early 20s and are now moving onto their next stage in life, either furthering their education, or moving into new jobs, new relationships and into adulthood. It is their final trip together as a team, as classmates, as friends. 19 members of the team have decided to board the plane, along with their families, supporters and friends.
They have set their trip for October 13, 1972, Flight 571. Before boarding the plane, the 45 passengers and crew members pose for a photo in front of the plane. They’re vibrant, excited, energetic and ready for their next adventure. It isn’t long after takeoff where things start to grow wrong. From the moment turbulence consumes the rugby team’s aircraft, their physical and emotional anguish takes center stage. The plane crash is shown in terrifying detail, cutting between shattered limbs, ankles breaking and punctured organs at the moment of impact. The plane has fallen apart and has crashed in the middle of the Andes mountains in western Argentina, just east of the border with Chile. With the dead surrounding the survivors, the remaining passengers must now fight for survival.
The film is much more than just a brutal recreation of the tragedy known as the Miracle of the Andes. It's also an existentialist tale about friendship, faith, and the moral boundaries that collapse in a life-or-death situation. This formidable production is not so much about getting to know every factual detail of the story, which many viewers will already be familiar with, as it is about understanding its devastating human ramifications. The film is spectacularly beautiful to watch, it is extremely difficult to understand how anyone could survive these conditions, and it showcases the strength of working as one rather than individuals.
Starving, surrounded by their dead loved ones, many of whom they then had to eat, and being unbroken enough psychologically to set out for help, this true story in a forbidding landscape, a society built in the snow, shows the true story of these brave individuals who would die trying to survive.
REVIEW: A
