Society of the Snow - Loving Life
Thoughts On: Society of the Snow (La Sociedad de la Nieve, 2023)
A plane crash leaves its passengers stranded in the harsh mountainous ranges of the Andes.
Society of the Snow is a brutally gruelling survival film recounting the 1972 Andes Flight disaster (about which many films, documentaries and books have been made previously). It tells a story that is fundamentally about hope, the persistence of will and the human spirit's collective yearning for life. The most fascinating aspect of the film, and indeed of all survival stories like this, is the positioning of survival, emphatically collective survival, above all other moral efforts. This is not a universal notion; there are historical and cultural perspectives that would suggest, in many contexts, that it is more honourable to die than to survive. Such had me wondering; if only 1 person survived the crash, would this be so moral of a story - especially in consideration of the fact that cannibalism is the key to survival. It has always been a controversial note of this story that the survivors had to eat dead bodies to not die. The moral weight of this is stressed in the movie and resolved - as it was in real life - with the assertion that the survivors all agreed that their body could be used as they used others' for subsistence if and when they died. But, perhaps if only one person survived, their tale would be perceived as less honourable, potentially scrupulous, certainly far more morally precarious. Nonetheless, this theme of collective survival highlights the indelibly human attachment to life and its existential drive toward love; for it is for and with love that the survivors make it home. And such makes love a core definition of humanity and life, highlighting the absurd truth that love can justify all things - which perhaps tells us much about how we should be orienting ourselves in the quotidian.
Engaging to the senses and spirit, incredibly well shot and realised with photogénie of an almost preposterously positive nature, Society of the Snow is a wearying ride, but it ends with punctum. I did wonder why hands were not in pockets and lighters only used to light cigarettes throughout, but verisimilitude was generally not too distracting of a question. Worth the watch; certainly confirms my disinterest in the 90s American version of the film.
