Episode 86: Society Of The Snow with J.A. Bayona
On October 13, 1972, a plane carrying 45 passengers and crew – 19 of whom were young rugby players, flying to play a match in Santiago, Chile – took off from Carrasco International Airport in Uruguay. The plane never reached its destination. Adverse weather conditions caused Flight 571 to crash into a mountain ridge, ripping the aircraft in two over the Andes mountains – one of the most inhospitable places on earth. Those who didn’t die immediately in the wreckage – the so-called lucky ones – may well have wished at many points that they had, such was the intensity of the suffering that followed. For 72 days, these survivors, aged between 19 and 26, endured frostbite. They faced an avalanche. They watched as, one by one, friends and teammates perished in the plummeting temperatures each night when the sun fell. Starving to death in this endless white abyss, the passengers of Flight 571 were forced to do the unthinkable to survive, resorting to eating the bodies of the deceased as a means of desperately clinging on to life.
You probably know all this, because the story of the Miracle in the Andes as it became known is a story that’s been told many times before, in books, films, documentaries and TV shows. What happened – how 16 people not only survived, but forged their own rescue – that’s all well-known. How it felt to be out there in the wilderness, though – the philosophical and spiritual conundrums the survivors faced, the emotion of wondering if you’d ever see your loved-ones again – that’s never really been truly translated to screen. That is, until now. Society Of The Snow – directed and co-written by our guest today, the great J.A. Bayona – is a drama that finds transcendence in the true-life tale of Flight 571. Yes, the film abides by the facts of what went down in that frosty mountain range across those agonising 72 days – Bayona spent hundreds of hours interviewing the survivors before penning the movie’s screenplay with his co-writers Bernat Vilaplana, Jaime Marques and Nicolás Casariego. But more importantly, inspired by a book – La Sociedad de la Nieve by Pablo Vierci – he took a lyrical approach to the story. One bordering on the metaphysical, full of dialogues between the living and the dead.
In the spoiler conversation you’re about to hear, JA tells me what it is about tales of people forced to confront the full might of nature that he finds himself drawn to as a storyteller (his previous films include tsunami drama The Impossible and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which had similar themes nature versus man). We talk about crafting the plane crash scene on the page, the bold decision he made involving the narrator of the tale and why the film doesn’t end on a note of triumph but something more melancholy. If you haven’t seen Society Of The Snow yet, be sure to hit pause now, watch on Netflix then come back as we dive into every detail.
Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.
Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft and WeScreenplay.
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