By Leslie Ambriz - The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — When Gustavo Zerbino saw "Society of the Snow," the survivor of the 1972 plane crash felt as if he was being submerged "in boiling water" as he relived the more than 70 days he and his rugby teammates were stranded in the snow-capped mountains of the Andes.
Zerbino praised J.A. Bayona's raw, unfiltered film, which premiered Thursday on the streaming platform Netflix in the U.S. and Latin America, but he also felt the same anxieties and emotions he experienced while stranded as a young athlete more than 50 years ago.
"Luckily (the film) finishes in two-and-a-half hours," he told The Associated Press last October.
Bayona's drama is based on the book of the same name by Pablo Vierci and follows the story of a Uruguayan Air Force plane disaster. The Old Christians rugby team was traveling with family and friends to Chile for a match when their plane crashed, leaving them stranded in the mountains where they faced snowstorms, avalanches and starvation, forcing them to eat the flesh of those who had died.
A scene from 'The Snow Society'. Netflix
The story of the tragedy has been told numerous times. It's been referenced in TV shows like Seinfeld, dramatized in countless films like 1993's Alive with Ethan Hawke, served as the subject of documentaries and plays, and even inspired Showtime's Emmy-nominated series Yellowjackets.
"We had always felt like things were missing," Zerbino said, reflecting on previous projects. "The book 'Snow Society' is a book that put in what was missing."
"We had always felt that things were missing"
Gustavo Zerbino survivor
In tackling the complex story of resilience and survival, Bayona wanted to do more than direct a dramatic interpretation of a real-life tragedy — he wanted to tell a story that honored the survivors and victims of the accident and their Uruguayan culture.
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"It's more of a reflection than an action book, and in the end it helped me a lot to understand the characters," the Spanish director said of Vierci's book. The writer is an associate producer on the film.
"Very real, very strong"
Bayona, whose credits include "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" and "A Monster Calls," wanted to tap into the connection between the living and the dead, including an on-screen tribute to those who perished.
"When he showed us the drafts of what he was doing, it made us all bristle and paralyzed our hearts. I mean, we saw that it was very real, very strong, and we saw that there was a genius," Zerbino said.
The Golden Globe-nominated film is narrated by Numa Turcatti, who died shortly before the rescue and is played by Enzo Vogrincic. That decision was made by the director and supported by Vierci.
"I've always been attracted to that possibility and need to tell it from the point of view of the dead," Vierci said.
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"It's small in the sense that it's 45 people lost on a plane 51 years ago, but it's so emblematic, it's so symbolic ... It's so good to have that window where we can look and see how these kids, enduring major adversity, built a society where compassion and mercy was what predominated," the author added.
Bayona's film seeks to honor history and shies away from embellishing or sensationalizing the horrors endured by passengers and crew members. Beyond talking to survivors, victims' loved ones, and visiting the crash site, he weaves Uruguayan candombe music into the highest points of tension and adds Turcatti's favorite song, from a popular Uruguayan band, into one of the film's first happy scenes.
"I was very interested in getting into the culture of Uruguay, in the culture of the time," said the director.
His focus also included survivors of the crash, such as Carlitos Paez, who turned 19 while stranded in the snow and plays his father in the film.
"I wanted to get as close to reality as possible," said Bayona, who put his cast through a doctor-supervised weight-loss program and filmed the avalanche scenes in icy conditions.
The film is one of the shortlisted for the Best International Feature Film category at the 2024 Oscars.
When Vogrincic first heard about the project, the Uruguayan actor knew he had to be a part of the story.
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"It's a story in Uruguay that you're born with, that you kind of get close to from a very young age," the actor said. "There's a sense of pride that accompanies you because they're Uruguayans (...) But as you get into the story and as you dig deeper, and you get to know them, you also start to discover that the story is much bigger, that the story is human."
Zerbino watched the film with other survivors of the crash and relatives of the victims. The end credits were greeted with a standing ovation, he said.
According to the former rugby player, this was the first time that the relatives of many victims were involved in the account of what happened.
"They hadn't read or seen movies, because they didn't want to suffer. And, well, they reconciled with history," said Zerbino, who feels he was committed to preserving the legacy of his deceased team members.
Bayona's film defends the mission of Zerbino and the other survivors: to maintain the legacy of those who gave up their being to keep their friends alive.
"'The Snow Society' is real, it's not a fiction, to the point that I came back to this world, but I still live in the snow society: my rules are love, friendship, solidarity," Zerbino said.