A person shared with me that commercial flights maintain emergency food supplies which contain 1,200 calories per day for each passenger to survive for 72 hours until rescue teams become improbable to reach them. The Society of the Snow reveals how the mathematical system presents an overly positive view of its operations. Seventy-two days. Forty-five passengers. Sixteen seats on the rescue helicopter. The mathematical calculations always produce results which differ from what people expect.
The film directed by J.A. Bayona adapts Pablo Vierci's book about the 1972 Andes plane disaster to show how resources should be distributed in situations which economists would never attempt to simulate. A group of young Uruguayan rugby players and their families go down in the mountains between Argentina and Chile, and what follows is an exercise in collective decision-making that would make any game theorist queasy. Who eats first. Who gets the warmest spot in the fuselage. Someone leaves their home to seek assistance although they understand there is no guarantee they will return.
The fuselage functions as a shared area which different groups fight to control. Pedro Luque uses his camera to build submarine-like interior spaces which present restricted views and multiple areas that fight for dominance. The survivors arrange their sleeping places based on body heat efficiency instead of their friendship level. The film shows a scene at the beginning which shows a person moving a dead body to create space for survivors yet everyone remains silent. You start to notice these tiny methods which help you save money.
What distinguishes this from Frank Marshall's 1993 version, Alive, is the refusal to sensationalise the cannibalism. I kept thinking about how the 1993 film treated the eating of the dead as its big reveal, its horror set-piece. The document presents this decision as a choice which received the same level of discussion as a proposed policy. "The camera fails to respond when someone utters the words "If I die, I give you permission to feed on my body."The system enables information exchange between two different entities. A contract.
Enzo Vogrincic tells the story of Numa who is a medical student who knows human body needs better than almost anyone else. His economics are biological. He knows how long muscle tissue lasts, when organ failure begins, what starvation does to cognition. The performance exists in a state of bureaucratic mourning which shows no signs of emotional expression. Diego Vegezzi demonstrates through his depiction of Marcelo as team captain how the mountainous environment and freezing temperatures caused him to lose his leadership role. Leadership loses its value when organizations run out of resources which they can distribute to their members.
The movie establishes its central theme through its unique storytelling method. The Strauch cousins, played by Esteban Kukuriczka and others, volunteer for the butchering work. The work exists as a labor task rather than a horror experience because someone needs to perform it. The operation maintains dignity because it successfully recovers all possible items while avoiding any superfluous waste. My nan shared with me about wartime rationing when she explained that people during that time period learned to view all items as having some value.
Bayona presents the avalanche sequence through a narrative which shows the mountain as it seeks to retrieve a debt. Snow floods the fuselage, buries the living alongside the dead. The colour drains from the frame into sepia, fish-eye distortion making the space feel even more compressed. The excavation process began when workers started digging through the soil while taking care to protect all people who remained hidden beneath the surface. The care is what gets you. The young men possess almost nothing yet they continue to show each other kindness.
The last mountain crossing of Nando and Roberto becomes a test of human strength as they search for assistance. I spent three days of climbing without food while wearing rugby cleats and making snow gear from available materials. Agustín Pardella shows Nando a functional solution which demonstrates his improved comprehension of the situation instead of keeping him in his present role. The statement contains no evidence which supports genuine optimism. I have used probability in my work.
Anyway, the film runs two and a half hours and earns most of it. Bayona possibly loses his composure during the final scenes when he extends the rescue operation beyond what the physical elements of the story can sustain. Real survivors don't look relieved in photos. They look hollowed out. The film contains only a small flaw which does not affect its overall success through its depiction of poverty and its camera work that shows equal respect for deceased and surviving characters and its portrayal of survival as a process of record-keeping.
The mountain shows no concern for any display of courage or faith or team spirit. It only cares about mass and altitude and temperature. The Society of the Snow bases its complete moral framework which defines our duties toward each other on statistical value management.
