Film Snow Community is currently in theaters and will begin streaming on Netflix on Thursday. The film centers on a band, a group of people who board a plane for one purpose—to play a rugby tournament—and encounter something vastly different, followed by an accident in which the dead are buried and the survivors huddle in the Andes, surrounded by snow and silence. Juan Antonio Bayona directs this ensemble story with his characteristic restraint and emotional clarity, delivering a cinematic experience that feels inevitable from the first moment and holds attention for the full two hours and twenty minutes. Viewers emerge from the theater with numb fingers and toes, a head that aches from the altitude, and a lingering sense of the cold that never quite leaves.
It is no coincidence that the plane’s passengers are mostly rugby players; a squad of fifteen requires every member to act in unison, just as in the sport itself where a lapse of ten minutes disrupts the entire team. When the crash occurs, sixteen players remain and form a compact, self-sustaining unit—an improvised cooperative of suffering—that makes the unimaginable possible: seventy-one days without adequate clothing, without sufficient food, and with endless snow and mountains looming. The narrative shows how everything else dissolves into the urgent need to keep the group intact and to secure the next day of life. Bayona captures this man who was born in Barcelona in 1975 with a tone that could have been forged anywhere in North America or Europe. The director’s focus on the relationships within the group is measured, tense, and unpretentious, tracing the path of the sixteen, the conflicts that arise, and the doubts that torment them. It also invites the audience—sitting with popcorn and a drink—to consider what they would do in such a situation, how they would act, what choices they would make, and how they would endure when the odds are stacked against them.
Two broader lessons emerge: the importance of leadership that lifts others and the idea that a moment of bold impulse can be the catalyst for extraordinary outcomes. When Nando Parrado chooses to leave the camp with his friend Roberto Canessa, he is propelled by a risky mix of desperation and daring. He endures a state of near-fainting exhaustion, with little food and every step offering the threat of death unless something is found. A chilling moment occurs at the top of the first peak, where the two men pause and look out to the seemingly endless mountains. Parrado tells his companion, with a glimmer of hope amid exhaustion, that behind the mountains lies the sea—Chile—an assertion that crystallizes the belief that there is something beyond the ice and rock worth fighting for.
Ultimately, a group can embody both the best and the worst traits of humanity. History has seen gatherings that evolve into destructive units, even as history also records teams that amplify generosity and courage. Fifty years after the events in the Andes, Bayona offers a film that honors the living and the dead with a cinematic blend of affection and excitement. It remains tight and focused, leaving little room for extraneous elements. Bayona, known to friends as Jota, is portrayed here as a filmmaker deeply connected to the heart of the story, suggesting a sentiment that could be rooted in multiple places beyond Barcelona, a reminder that universal themes can emerge from a specific, local reality. The result is a work that feels intimate yet expansive, a testament to the power of group dynamics under pressure and the human drive to survive against nearly insurmountable odds.