[Now Airing] THB #440: Society of the Snow

There is really nothing else like Society of the Snow.

It is an absolute masterwork of a film. J.A. Bayona is wonderful film artist. The true-life story has become iconic over 51 years, but is still as ripe as it was when it was first reported and then first turned into a movie in 1993 (Alive).

The choice by Bayona and his co-screenwriters Nicolás Casariego, Jaime Marques, and Bernat Vilaplana in adapting the book by Pablo Vierci to be as clear-eyed and less sentimental about what happened on those weeks lost on a mountain.

There is no escaping this being thought of as “soccer team that crashed in the mountains and became cannibals” thing… even if it was actually a rugby team and the word “cannibal” is really too easy. But Bayona has managed to make a movie that is more honest about the eating of human flesh on that mountain than any other… and yet, manages not to make it a movie about cannibalism. Someone smartly referred to the eating of the meat as almost religious… like communion.…