The accident of the Uruguayan rugby team that crashed in the Andes, with 16 survivors of the 45 passengers, is one of the most terrifying and inspiring stories of the last 50 years. For the scale of the story, it’s even surprising that they didn’t film it more than once.

Now that five decades have passed, – for the first time – the story is given the most impactful narrative in cinema, with the thrilling The Society of Snow. Juan Antonio Bayona, who has already written another fantastic survival story – The Impossible – brought a unique sensitivity to a story whose details are so well known. First, the cast of strangers gradually involves us, and then, choosing a lesser-known character to lead the narrative, brings us the anguish of waiting, of the challenges of nature, and of faith to overcome certain death in every moment of the 72 days that they were isolated in the Andes.

It’s impossible to talk about The Society of Snow without talking about Alive, from 1993. Frank Marshall‘s film, released 30 years ago, already seemed like an Americanized version of the drama, starting with the cast led by Ethan Hawke, then recently straight out of Dead Poets Society. The sequence of the plane crash at the time was remarkable, but even the Netflix film surpasses it, after all, for the director it wasn’t even the hardest part. Making us glimpse a minimum of the survivors’ suffering is always the most complex, especially because what is talked about most to this day was their decision, in the total lack of food, to feed on the dead. Cannibalism? The film makes us understand the difference between what a thing is and what anthropophagy is.

The empathy and compassion that the script, following the narrative of the book of the same name, is crucial to the emotion. Unfortunately for us Brazilians and journalists, who lost acquaintances a few years ago in the tragic Chapecoense flight, this is a film too close to home. Really hurts.

The Society of Snow is certainly one of the films nominated for foreign films at the Oscars. And with a good chance of winning!

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