SOCIETY OF THE SNOW
(15) 143mins
★★★★☆
CANNIBALISM is never the most, er, mouth-watering of topics – even less so when it is based on a true story.
But the tale of the 1972 Andes plane disaster continues to fascinate despite being told many times.
A jet flying the Uruguayan rugby team and their families crashed into an icy mountain and those who survived stayed alive by dining on the dead.
Whether it is Pablo Vierci’s recent book Society Of The Snow, which this Spanish screenplay is based on, or 1974’s Alive by Piers Paul Read, the fact that those who returned home existed for 71 days by consuming the dead in the wreckage remains the one unforgettable fact about events.
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So it is to director JA Bayona’s credit that this brutal, but breathtaking, telling does not become an obvious horror focused only on flesh eating.
Although be forewarned — it does still bear some witness to these unavoidable scenes.
Yes it is a terror tale, but one about humanity and hope that also takes time to respectfully ponder skin-scoffing ethics and morality.
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Can you ever chew those you knew without remembering their faces? With narration from various characters, some who came home, some who did not, Bayona introduces us to the travellers.
Prophetically, a note passed around in a church bears the names of all the sporting players who will take off fatefully. Not all will be read out on the telephone when, two months later, the rescue crews are finally alerted.
Soon they are plummeting to the ground, fuselage and wings shattering, bones breaking, metal shards searing and limbs detaching in a scene so horrendous it is probably not a wise watch if you plan to check in at an airport anytime soon.
The dreadful aftermath unfolds, with starvation, suffering, despair and hysteria all in a sub-zero climate with endless snow.
An avalanche causes further deaths, and of course there is the hacking up of frozen bodies for food.
But a super cast, especially relative unknowns Enzo Vogrincic (Numa) and Valentino Alonso (Alfredo), somehow keep the unfathomable and grisly emotive and gripping.
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NEXT GOAL WINS
(12A) 104mins
★★☆☆☆
AFTER much success, this comedy offering from Taika Waititi is an own goal.
The half-baked underdog story is loosely based on the real-life sporting efforts of American Samoa’s national team: Amateur footballers who live and work on a tiny island and have never won a game.
They are a laughing stock at home and abroad but hope comes in the form of alcoholic coach Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender) who is given one last chance to prove himself by whipping them into shape for the 2014 World Cup qualifiers.
Caricaturish depictions of the players and islanders are awkwardly directed and earn few laughs.
Even the jokes that take aim at its own white saviour narrative are eye-rolling.
Fassbender’s comedic notes are rarely on beat while a familiar subplot involving his ex-wife Gail (Elisabeth Moss) and his daughter is underdeveloped, underserved and ends with a jarring, emotional climax.
A more sensitive subplot involving player Jaiyah Saelua (Kaimana), the first transgender player ever to compete in a World Cup qualifier, feels heavy-handed and undercooked at times. And the less we talk about unimaginative and over-edited playing sequences the better.
Red card.
THE BOY AND THE HERON
(12A) 124mins
★★★★★
THIS latest whimsical story from Studio Ghibli is just as enchanting as animated classics Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and Howl’s Moving Castle, delivered by filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki.
Set during the Pacific War, the heart-wrenching tale centres on Mahito, a 12-year-old boy struggling to fit into a new town after his mum’s death.
His father works away most days and has married Mahito’s mother’s sister. She is pregnant with their baby and Mahito is left feeling isolated.
The beauty of the animation is how it captures the kid’s uneasy emotions as well as weighted silences that add tension.
Yet the kooky magic soon flourishes with the arrival of a talking heron that draws Mahito in to an adventure to find his mother – who he claims is still alive – in a mystical, dystopian world.
With fantastical birds of prey, loopy grannies, fire-wielding heroine and a grizzled wizard, the film is full of wacky characters and gorgeous action set-pieces to push the journey towards an emotionally invigorating climax about grief, family and conflicts that engulf us.
It is everything you could hope for in a coming-of-age tale – and then some.
In cinemas Boxing Day.
- Hanna Flint
