Film Review: Society of the Snow takes a bite out of survival-thriller tropes

Society of the Snow

• Society of the Snow
• ★★★★★
• Cinema release

Society of the Snow (15A) is a harrowing account of the events that transpired when a flight from Uruguay to Chile crash-landed high in the Andes in 1972.

Marooned in a vast valley in ‘a place where living is impossible’, the survivors — most of them medical students and members of a university rugby team — find themselves in a frozen hell.

As they huddle together for warmth in the wreckage of the fuselage, their chances of rescue disappearing and all food long since eaten, the survivors are forced to think the unthinkable.

Co-written and directed by JA Bayona (The Impossible), Society of the Snow is a gripping survival thriller rooted in the morality of broaching one of society’s great taboos, that of eating a fellow human being.

There are superb performances throughout the ensemble cast, with Enzo Vogrincic Roldán to the fore as Numa, whose voiceover guides us through the litany of disasters, although cinematographer Pedro Luque warrants a special mention for his superb work in capturing the implacably alien landscape.

JA Bayona delivers a compelling story of endurance depicting the unbreakable human spirit and an indomitable will to survive.