A Voice Cries Out in the Wilderness

On everyday saints and the Catholic spirituality of Society of the Snow

Something about J.A. Bayona’s Society of the Snow has struck a nerve in another part of the world. Under the nose of the ever-dominant American culture, the Netflix survival drama, a retelling of the 1972 Andes Flight Disaster based on Pablo Vierci’s brilliant and comprehensive account, has reached levels of international success usually only seen in US-based and promoted productions. Now the second-most popular foreign language film of all time on Netflix, Society of the Snow has generated a large and loyal fanbase across all four corners of the internet, becoming a major cultural phenomenon in the Spanish speaking world. As a far removed yanqui who has silently followed this particular phenomena in utter awe for several weeks, the only real comment I can make about it is that I share in their madness. 

It's been a long while since a film like this, since a tragedy like this, has caused me to contemplate so thoroughly upon it. In the midst of the unfolding digital chaos, my mind so often wandered back to the image of the wreckage in the barren Valley of Tears to survey the scene once more. Similar disasters of this nature have occurred in North America, but Andes Tragedy exists in its own space. It is an event that simultaneously fills me with utter horror at what these young men were forced to do in their desperation, and sublime amazement that anyone survived at all. Most of all, it fills me with profound sadness at what was lost. It leaves a burning question that I and so many others will perhaps be asking God forever. If there had been another way, any other way, why couldn’t You have made it so?

 It is not hard to find a spiritual foothold in Society of the Snow, and the real life tragedy it’s based upon. All of the passengers aboard Uruguayan Flight 571 were Roman Catholic, and the sixteen survivors of the tragedy have often cited their Catholic faith as a major factor in why they lived to tell their story. Indeed, that Catholicism is explicitly present throughout the film, both in the overt prayers and services depicted, and the subtle “blink-and-you-miss-it” moments of scripture and imagery invoked throughout. But within this film exists a deeper, more existential element, underscored by the central voice to tell this story. Through the lens of Bayona’s work, we come to realize what we are witnessing is not simply a story of survivors, or heroes, or man’s triumph over nature. This is a martyr’s story. This is a story of how God moves.

There is so much death in this world. So many open and festering wounds plague our planet. Staring at scars, no matter how ugly they are, is easier to stomach. Nothing more can be done for scars. Yet the revisitation and appraisal of tragedies such as this one says something about us, says something about how God works through us and others. The echoes of it still call us to act, and as badly as we want to help, as badly as we desire to correct the course of history, we are prevented by power and circumstance and that great impassible barrier that is the incessant forward march of time. We can only be witnesses. And by witnessing we can begin to understand. 

Who were these men on the mountain? Where is God at the edge of the world? 

The mountain replies; Come and see.

I. The Crucified People

You can only watch as the Fairchild FH-277 collides with the earth. In moments, a copilot’s miscalculation turns talk and laughter into screams and prayers. Society of the Snow leaves nothing to the imagination as the air is filled with the sounds of twisting metal, the howl of mountain wind, the breaking of bones as the torn apart fuselage crashes down into its final resting place, leaving many dead in the aftermath. In only a moment, these people of privilege and education are reduced to fragmented and discarded little pieces of humanity, stranded and soon forgotten by the world. It is not easy to watch all this suffering unfold, the survivors enduring freezing temperatures, snowblindness, disease, and further death. After days without food, they are reduced to making the impossible choice of eating the flesh of their deceased friends. Their prayers to God are seemingly met with silence.  

And yet, faith persists. The question of what one believes in at the edge of the world is one that Bayona dwells upon in varying ways. In the aftermath of the accident, many still cling desperately to the God of their Catholic faith. For Nando Parrado, who has lost both his mother and sister in the accident, it is the thought of returning home to his father that drives his idea to make a daring expedition across the Andes when the time is right.  The seriously injured Arturo Nogueira has a different perspective. Incapacitated in a makeshift hammock within the plane’s fuselage, he muses on his faith with his fellow survivors Numa Turcatti and Rafael “el Vasco” Echavarren.

“ Don't laugh at me. But my faith - sorry, Numa - isn't in your God. Because that God tells me what I'm supposed to do at home. But He doesn't tell me what to do on the mountain. What's happening here is a completely different situation. Numa. This is my heaven. I believe in another god. I believe in the god that Roberto keeps inside his head when he comes to heal each of my wounds. In the god that Nando keeps in his legs and that lets him continue walking no matter what. I believe in Daniel's hands when he cuts the meat. And Fito, when he gives it to us without saying which of our friends it belonged to. That way, we can eat it without... without having to remember their faces. That's the god I believe in.”

It is pointedly clear that Arturo derives spiritual meaning solely from the camaraderie of his fellow survivors. What makes this monologue interesting is that in the heavily spiritual backdrop of this film, one can interpret such a sentiment in a more literal sense, both visually and metaphorically. Christ imagery is invoked throughout the film; for example a shot of the unconscious body of Nando Parrado being carried out of the fuselage invokes imagery of Christ being carried into his tomb. Yet one can also argue that God is embodied in the group's actions, in the way they have given all of themselves to alleviate the suffering of those around them.

Such a concept was often explored by proponents of Latin American liberation theology in the corresponding decades. Gustavo Gutierrez concludes his analysis on the Book of Job with the assertion that when those like Job walk in the footsteps of Jesus, they are realizing God’s ultimate plan for humanity. In losing everything, Job came to recognize the suffering of others. He was only able to easily speak to God again, not after heeding the pious assurances of his friends, but in caring for the poor. God’s preference lies with the poor, marginalized, and suffering, and Christ’s suffering on the Cross is reflected through them. Because of this, Gutierrez writes, “commitment to the alleviation of human suffering, and especially to the removal of its causes as far as possible, is an obligation to the followers of Jesus.’”

Jesuit philosopher Ignacio Ellacuría directly invoked this imagery in his theory of “the crucified people.” This term referred to those who had been literally and figuratively “crucified” through the ages, be it by nature or the human systems that oppress. Like Gutierrez, Ellacuría emphasized the obligation of Christians to take these crucified people down from their crosses. We are called to do so. Jon Sobrino SJ echoed Ellacuría’s terminology when he asserted that “the crucified people have the power to call us… the suffering of these crucified people has the power to move our hearts which would otherwise remain hardened, distant, numb.” 

God exists in the midst of tragedy, then, as both a question and an answer, a call and a response. Christ is embodied in those who suffer, and through them, beckons us to alleviate the suffering. When we heed this call, we follow in his footsteps, and work his will.  

Through this lens, we see God in both the suffering and simple acts of mercy on the mountain. God is present in those who heal the sick, those who participate in the gruesome work to feed the others, those who consent to having their bodies eaten by the others if they perish.  It is a reflection of how Christ exists on the margins, something quiet and nameless, in both the living and the dead. Though King of the Universe, and God of all Creation, as Thomas Merton writes “...he is also still the Son of Man, the hidden one, unknown, unremarkable, vulnerable. He can be killed.”

II. Everyday Martyrs 

The theme is pointedly underscored through the film’s protagonist and narrator, Numa Turcatti. A humble and reserved law student, he is not a member of the Old Christians Rugby Team but was convinced by friends to join them on the flight for a weekend in Chile. He barely knows anyone else on board, and through sheer circumstance is among the initial survivors. Numa’s is not a name often brought up in the popular retellings of Flight 571, When it is, it’s only in passing. Numa does not assume a leadership role in the group, nor butcher the corpses of the dead, nor make that final trip across the Andes to find help. Yet through his eyes we bear witness. His own heroism mostly exists in the background; quiet, resolute, selfless. He participates in the first of the expeditions. He helps the injured. He assists where he is needed. He is even the one who is able to find an escape out of the snow after the broken fuselage is buried in two consecutive avalanches. And he is the last to die.

There is a certain dread one feels upon realizing this story is being told from the perspective of one of the individuals who didn’t make it home. There is a certain sorrow in watching his rapid decline from the injury he sustains. And yet it moves one to watch how the love of his friends keeps him resolute, how he continues to assist others until his body no longer allows him to do so.  As death approaches, he is sorrowful, he mourns the long life ahead of him and the family he will never see again, but he does not despair. Instead, he continues to give all of himself for the group’s survival, this time in the most literal of senses. 

Numa faces death with courage. He sees it as a final act of sacrifice for those who he has come to love and has thus accepted it. This is evidenced in his last conversation with Nando, as he lays dying in the torn fuselage. In a last act of selflessness, he consents for his body to be eaten by his friends upon his passing. When Nando protests, he is quick to assure him.

“It’s fine. I’m at peace. I’m prepared for what’s coming. We both are, my brother. And I’m so happy to know that you guys are gonna make it. That makes me feel very happy, Nando.”   

The Catholic imagery surrounding Numa’s last scene is explicit. In the dark and tomb-like fuselage, the young medical student, Roberto Canessa, attempts to treat the infected wounds that now cover his wasting body. Weak and skeletal, he reaches up and with his thumb smears blood upon Roberto’s forehead, softly thanking him for his compassion. With this dying gesture, he invokes imagery of Christ as he symbolically anoints Roberto to carry on the trek that he himself could not complete. 

There is no sentimental send off, no sense of closure for the viewer to be consoled by. In the next scene he is gone with the same brutal finality of the other victims, ripped out of mortal hands by the mountain. As the survivors gather around his lifeless body, they silently pass around a note found in his hand. Scribbled in his handwriting is a version of John 15:13 - “There is no greater love than to give one's life for one's friends.”

It should be noted how his depicted decline and death broadly parallels the plight of the Catholic martyr, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith: it means bearing witness even unto death. The martyr bears witness to Christ who died and rose, to whom he is united by charity. He bears witness to the truth of the faith and of Christian doctrine. He endures death through an act of fortitude. "Let me become the food of the beasts, through whom it will be given me to reach God.”

Even unto death, he bears witness to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith. He has given all of himself, his body and his life, with the certainty that his death would motivate the remaining survivors to finally make their final attempt at escape. What he leaves behind is a permanent reminder of that act of love, the inspiration for his disciples to go forward in his stead.  

Reading this simple passage is the spark that moves Roberto into action. After days of debating with Nando over when they should depart on their final attempt to get help, a sense of urgency fills him, a firm resolve that he will not allow anyone else to die here. Abandoning his previous hesitancy, he makes the decision to leave with Nando the following morning. After ten days of a grueling and uncertain expedition across the Andes, the pair will be discovered and rescued by a muleteer, which will lead to the subsequent rescue of the remaining fourteen survivors. Numa was ultimately correct in his certitude; his death became the catalyst for the salvation of his friends. 

In spite of this, Numa Turcatti has long been buried by history, under the subsequent sweeping sensationalist media narratives that followed the rescue of the survivors. He became a mere statistic, a name among the all names of the dead, one of many who now rests under a weathered iron cross on the mountainside. More than fifty years later, he has finally been unearthed, alongside the others who departed before him. He became representative of those who did not make it home and has given voice to their sacrifice. 

Perhaps it is that emphasis on the sacrifice of the dead that has haunted me so much about this piece, and this tragedy, among all the others in the world. How parallel it is with the sacrifice of the God those passengers so unwaveringly believed in, how that God is so inextricably embodied within them. How those so young would accept the possibility of their deaths with such courage, and give of themselves in the most literal sense, if it meant their friends would live on in their stead. It is a soul shaking act of love to witness, and one not easy to recover from. 

Society of the Snow is not an account that attempts to give a clear and succinct explanation for what happened on the mountain. Doing so would be a futile attempt at making sense of the senseless, an explanation of the unexplainable. Rather, the film takes a different path and serves another purpose. 

 It is a reminder of the living saints that walk among us unnoticed. Those that will never have their faces immortalized in a cathedral’s stained glass and whose relics will never be lifted up in veneration. And yet through their small selfless words and actions, they have touched more lives than they will ever conceive. Holiness is not simply about miracles. It is not simply about rigor or mighty works. Holiness is allowing God to work through us. It is living in such a way that our sacrifices may reach across time and set beating hearts on fire. We witness Him in these acts of sacrifice by those on the margins, in these acts of love that they inspire in response.

Merton once wrote: “…In the simplicity of all that you do men will recognize your peacefulness and give glory to God.” And so, they do. Even when His name is not spoken, the call and response of God echoes on through the ages. The love returns once more. One can see how it manifests not the fanfare but in the way it has moved complete strangers into quiet acts of compassion, such as leaving digital flowers and notes on the real victims’ memorials.

1 John 2:17. The world and all its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God will live forever. 

I do not believe in death without resurrection. I believe that nothing that is done in love can ever truly die, and that the spirit of a man who acts in love will rise again. I do not mean simply in the literal sense, but also in a resurrection less tangible and more immediate. Those who mimic Christ in life will surely mimic him in death. For though the body of a man who acts in love may die, in those that he touches, he will rise again and again.

And what greater evidence than this, of our triumph over death?

Works Referenced: 
Gutierrez, Gustavo. On Job- God Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent (1987)
Merton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation. (1949)
Sobrino, Jon. Where is God? Earthquake, Terrorism, Barbarity, and Hope (2001)