Society of the Snow is a film about a group of air-crash survivors who are stranded in the Andes mountains hoping to be rescued. The film is streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary:
The Old Christians Rugby Club is headed to Chile for a long weekend in October of 1972, and the team and their companions travel across the Andes mountains by plane.
Among them is Numa Turcatti, a future lawyer convinced by his friends to come along for the trip.
The group is almost at their destination when the plane is caught up in turbulence and splits open in the air.
The back half is flung away while the front half crashes down into a glacier in the heart of the mountains.
After the initial shock, some survivors begin assessing the situation. Roberto Canessa is a medical student and with the help of a few others, tends to the injured.
The captain of the team, Marcelo, takes charge and formulates a plan on what to do. They move the dead outside and take the seats out of the fuselage so that they have more space inside.
At night, everyone has to stick close to each other for warmth, but not everyone makes it through to the morning,
They go through all of the luggage they can find and gather rations and other useful items for their survival.
Over the next few days, they see a plane in the air and hear the sounds of planes flying by, but aren’t spotted by anyone.
Numa suggests finding the tail of the plane and getting its battery to use the radio, but they only find more debris and bodies.
When the rations run out, some of the survivors suggest eating the flesh of the dead, but not everyone is open to that idea.
At the end of ten days, they listen to a radio broadcast announcing that the search for the plane is being concluded until the new year.
Some of the men accept their fate, but the strongest of the bunch insist that they can survive till someone finds them.
2 weeks in, and the survivors have managed to keep their spirits as high as possible but a storm hits, burying the fuselage under snow and killing many more.
After staying buried for a few days, they are forced to feed off of the bodies inside them, and Numa cannot hold back his frustration.
He kicks out one of the windows and cuts his leg in the process. He then digs through the snow until eventually reaches the surface.
4 of them decide to travel downhill toward Argentina in the hopes of crossing the mountain range. However, Numa’s leg gets infected and he has to return to the plane.
The other three return a few days later with potentially positive news.
Ending explained:
What do Nando, Roberto, and Tintin find?
Nando returns and tells Numa that they found the tail of the plane. The battery was still intact and they figured it would be better to take the radio there.
They take Roy along since he fixed the small radio and would probably be able to work on the big one.
4 of them head back to the tail to try and contact someone but to no avail. With no other options left, they head back to the plane.
What happens to Numa?
Numa feels guilty for not being able to contribute ever since his leg was infected. The others tell him that he shouldn’t think that way.
He gives consent for them to consume his body once he is dead, but his friends beg him to hold on for a little while longer.
The radio broadcast mentions that the Uruguayan Air Force is sending out a plane to search for them once again, and Roberto wants them to stay put and wait for rescue.
However, Numa finally succumbs to his infection and in his hand, clasps a note that says “there is no greater love than to give one’s life for friends”.
Touched by his sacrifice, Roberto agrees to travel once again.
Do the survivors return to civilization?
Roberto, Nando, and Tintin travel once more for days until they reach a high peak. Nando is convinced that they are close to the edge of the mountains.
Tintin heads back so that the rations can last longer, while Nando and Roberto push on. They travel for many days until they eventually come across a villager.
They send a message across about who they are and it finds its way to the Air Force who rush there to organize the rescue.
16 survivors made it back after spending 70 days stuck in the snowy Andes where they were forced to do whatever they could for their survival.
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