Society of the Snow (2023)

This is not the first attempt to the the story of the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 in the Andes mountains on October 13, 1972. It has been told and re-told and re-told again, to varying degrees of success, although what "success" looks like is up to interpretation. This film, nominated for a number of Oscars this year, is the latest installment, an adaptation of Pablo Vierci’s 2009 book. This in itself is a new development--The standard text that has been used is Piers Paul Read's 1974 book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors. The facts alone are terrifying. Most of the passengers onboard were killed instantly (the plane was, essentially, sliced in half by a mountain). After a number of days, the search was called off. The starving survivors resorted to cannibalism. They were buried under an avalanche at one point. Eventually, when the weather turned towards a thaw, two young members of the rugby team onboard set off west to try to reach Chile. They had no gear and no climbing experience. Against the odds, the two made it to civilization, and were able to guide rescue helicopters back to the crashed plane. Sixteen passengers were lifted out, alive. The story made international news. The take away message for me is about survival--it is a decision to survive, and once that decision has been reached, everything from then on flows from it. That alone is not enough, of course, and there is a miraculousness to the end result here, but the mental toughness the movie conveys as an essential ingredient is memorable as well as unsettling.