Society of the Snow

Society of the snow is a distressing yet magnificent tale of a mixed group of people, family, friends, lovers and strangers. The tale follows this group throughout their sad and complicated journey from Uruguay to Chile. The plan crashed high up in one of the most treacherous and dangerous mountain chains in South America and the world, the Andes. As they crash high up in the mountains they must learn to live in their new habitat as the authorities look for them. The various search and rescue teams give up and the group is officially classed as deceased. Eventually the survivors get weaker and need food to survive. A moral combat then takes place, “Is it right to eat dead bodies?”. A divided is created, some would rather starve to death than to destroy dead bodies. Keep in mind that at this time, Uruguay was an extremely religious country and dead bodies are sacred. As they eat there dead friends and lovers and try to survive as well as they can a small group of survivors decides to fight the mountains with only one objective, finding civilization. After 72 days they eventually find humans. Although the tale ends with the survivors finding their families once again the mark that the movies leaves on you does not die there.  

The film is able to not only be excruciatingly difficult to watch due to its gore nature and its grime images, it brings hope in humanity as itself. The survivors had to fight with every ounce of their body and should in order to survive in a deadly climate where temperatures can attain up to negative 30C and during the days the sun rays are reflected on the pure and untouched snow effectively burning the bodies of the society. To me this showed how life is the one thing in our lives that we have control over and that there will always be value in fighting for it. Although I will probably never have to bear such a situation I want to keep in mind throughout the rest of my life an appreciation for my easygoing and easy life that I was lucky to be given by my parents. A life where I never have to live in an impossible situation, where my humanity is protected from most dangers.  

A moment of the film that truly altered my view of the world as I know it is when the protagonist of the film, Numa, asks one of his fellow friends how he is able to eat the other people. The other then responds that he has stopped believing in God as they know it. He cites every single person still alive as a god highlighting their efforts that they are all undergoing in order for the group to survive a bit longer, to never lose hope. He puts an accent on the fact that God as he has always believed in helps him and protects him at home yet is unable to help him in the Andes, where all rules of life are flipped over and a new way of life is necessary to keep faith in life, therefore to survive.  

Although I myself have grown up religious and has since distanced myself slowly from religion it made me think in my faith. What it my faith, is it a god?, is It my fiends? My family? These are questions that I will probably never has answers to yet they are existential and essential to have in the back of my mind as I go on in my life. These are questions that I will have to think of as I begin my true adult life in the upcoming years where I will have the ability to shape my future into a model that I will eventually be locked in. Maybe that thanks to  this inspiring tale of the society of the snow I will be able to find a cell that corresponds to who I am at the core and I demand that all who are interested in this movie to watch and think about the morals of the story. I am confident that not everyone will have the same conclusion as I have yet I believe that all will be mesmerised but the story and will find one aspect of the story that truly hits them to the soul, to an existential level.