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. That may sound pretentious. reading it here, but when you see the movie, it won’t.