Don’t eat the secret sauce. Society of the Snow (La sociedad de la nieve) is an intense and gripping tale of survival and cannibalism, from director J.A. Bayona. The Spanish-language movie is about the 1972 plane crash that stranded dozens of people–most notably players of a Uruguayan rugby team–on a glacier in the Andes.
Highlighted by one of the better plane crash scenes put to film in quite some time, Bayona, who also directed The Impossible (the criminally underseen survival pic about the extremely deadly 2004 tsunami), treats audience to an immersive, detailed, and gritty look at how the young men who were eventually rescued from the icy slopes survived for nearly two months.
Avalanches, storms, freezing temperatures, and of course the eating of corpses are all in play; each element contributes to a visceral experience. The performances are top notch, too, even if everyone starts looking the same after a while (frostbite, starvation, and beards will do that).
Society of the Snow is one of the better movies you’ll see this year. Don’t miss it. Just don’t eat the secret sauce.
Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.
