A ‘Tragedy and a Miracle’ in the Andes
Society of the Snow Revisits a 1972 Plane Crash—And Helps Explain Why It Remains Ingrained in the Uruguayan National Memory
At the beginning of Society of the Snow, Spain’s entry for Best International Feature Film for the upcoming Academy Awards, there is a scene in a Catholic church in Montevideo, Uruguay, where a priest can be heard stating that “Man does not live by bread alone.”
It’s the first indication that the film, about the 1972 Uruguayan plane crash in the Andes, will be centered on the spiritual and explicitly religious dimension of the experience.
The story of the crash is, at this point, ingrained in the Uruguayan national memory: In October, …
