Review: 'Society of the Snow' is a harrowing, yet sensitive, telling of the 1972 Andes flight disaster that finds meaning in the details

With the true-life “Society of the Snow,” director J.A. Bayona starts with a harrowing tragedy that people think they know about — and digs deep into the human stories within it to find something that’s ultimately an examination of the soul.

On Oct. 13, 1972, a plane carrying 40 people — including members of a Uruguayan rugby team — and five crew members took off from Montevideo for Santiago, Chile. Traversing a narrow pass in the Andes, the plane crashed in the snowy mountains. According to the records, only 33 people survived the crash.

Bayona — whose track record with disasters includes “The Impossible” (2012), about the 2004 Phuket tsunami, and 2018’s “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” — deploys a special-effects crew that captures the chaos and violence of the initial plane crash with brutal clarity. The sequence stands as one of the most watch-through-your-fingers moments in recent movies, next to the race crash near the end of “Ferrari.”

Those who survive the crash, and the first night of freezing weather that killed another five, get organized in a hurry. They move the dead out of the fuselage, set up the wounded inside, and start scavenging through luggage to find any scraps of food available. That food lasts a couple of days, and then they have to start talking about alternatives.

This aspect of the story is the part people probably remember — either from hearing about it on a podcast, or maybe seeing Ethan Hawke and Vincent Spano re-creating the events in the 1993 movie “Alive.” The movie doesn’t shy away from the topic of cannibalism, but handles it with sensitivity, centering on the conversations among the survivors, about the necessity to survive against the legality and morality of eating their deceased compatriots. 

In the end, Bayona and his co-writers (Bernal Vilaplana, Jaime Marques and Nicolás Casariego) present the cannibalism issue as one element among many in the narrative. Those elements include desperate hikes in the snow to seek help, and philosophical conversations about the deeper meaning — if there is one — of enduring this ordeal.

The cast, largely unknown to American audiences, is a stellar ensemble. Among the standouts are Enzo Vogrincic as Numa, seen as one of the most respected of the rugby players; Matias Recalls as Roberto Canesa, a medical student who presents the cold logic of their odds of survival; and Agustin Pardella as Nando Parrado, who transforms from shell-shocked madman to perhaps the sanest person on the plane.

“Society of the Snow” captures the details of this survival story, finding tests of faith and friendship at each turn. It’s an object lesson for Hollywood, that true-life stories can actually be true to life, and pack an emotional punch without ridiculous amounts of embellishment. 

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‘Society of the Snow’

★★★1/2

Starts streaming Thursday, January 4, on Netflix. Rated R for violent/disturbing material and brief graphic nudity. Running time: 144 minutes; in Spanish, with subtitles.