Zerbino praises the film raw and unfiltered by JA Bayona, which premieres on Thursday in Netflix in the United States and Latin America, but he also felt the same anxieties and emotions that he experienced while stranded as a young athlete more than 50 years ago.
“Luckily (the film) ends in two and a half hours,” he told The Associated Press last October.
The Bayona drama is based on the book of the same name Pablo Vierci and follows the history of the disaster of a Uruguayan Air Force plane. The Old Christians rugby team was traveling with family and friends to Chile for a match when their plane crashed, leaving them stranded in the mountains where they faced blizzards, avalanches and hunger, forcing them to eat the flesh of those who had died.
The story of the tragedy has been told numerous times. It has been referred to on television programs such as Seinfeld, dramatized in countless films such as Alive (They live!) from 1993 with Ethan Hawke, served as the subject of documentaries and plays and even inspired Yellowjackets from Showtime, nominated for an Emmy.
“We had always felt like things were missing,” Zerbino said, reflecting on previous projects. “The book The snow society “It is a book that provided what was missing.”
The history
In tackling the complex story of resilience and survival, Bayona wanted to do more than direct a dramatic interpretation of a real-life tragedy. She wanted to tell a story that would honor the survivors and victims of the accident and their Uruguayan culture.
“It’s more of a reflection than an action book and in the end it helped me a lot to understand the characters,” said the Spanish director about Vierci’s book. The writer is an associate producer of the film.
Bayona, whose credits include Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) y A monster comes to see mewanted to take advantage of the connection between the living and the dead, including an on-screen tribute to those who perished.
“When he showed us the drafts of what he was doing, it made us all bristle and paralyze our hearts. I mean, we already saw that it was very real, very strong, and we saw that there was genius,” said Zerbino.
The Golden Globe nominated film is narrated by Numa Turcatti, who died shortly before the rescue and is performed by Enzo Vogrincic. That decision was made by the director and supported by Vierci.
“I was always attracted to that possibility and need to tell it from the point of view of the dead,” Vierci said.
“It’s (a story) small in the sense that there are 45 people lost on a plane 51 years ago, but it’s so emblematic, it’s so symbolic () it’s so good to have that window where we can look and see how these kids, enduring major adversities, built a society where compassion and mercy predominated,” added the author.
A film to commemorate
Bayona’s film seeks to honor history and moves away from embellishing or sensationalizing the horrors endured by the passengers and crew members. Beyond speaking with survivors, victims’ loved ones and visiting the crash site, he weaves Uruguayan candombe music into the highest points of tension and adds Turcatti’s favorite song from a popular Uruguayan band in one of the first happy scenes from the movie.
“I was very interested in getting into the culture of Uruguay, in the culture of the time,” said the director.
Their focus also included survivors of the accident, such as Carlitos Pez, who turned 19 stranded in the snow and plays his father in the film.
“I wanted to get as close to reality as possible,” said Bayona, who put his cast through a doctor-supervised weight-loss program and filmed the avalanche scenes in freezing conditions.
The film is one of those shortlisted for the best international feature film category at the 2024 Academy Awards.
When Vogrincic first heard about the project, the Uruguayan actor knew he had to be part of the story.
“It’s a story in Uruguay that you were born with, that in some way you got close to it from a very young age,” said the actor. “There is a feeling of pride that accompanies you because they are Uruguayans () but as you enter the story and as you go deeper, and you get to know them, you also begin to discover that the story is much bigger, that the history is human”.
Zerbino watched the film with other survivors of the accident and relatives of the victims. The closing credits were greeted with a standing ovation, he said.
According to the former rugby player, this was the first time that the relatives of many victims were involved in recounting what happened.
“They hadn’t read or seen movies, because they didn’t want to suffer. And, well, they reconciled themselves with history,” said Zerbino, who feels that he was committed to preserving the legacy of his deceased team members.
Bayona’s film defends the mission of Zerbino and the other survivors: to maintain the legacy of those who gave up their being to keep their friends alive.
“The snow society is real, it is not a fiction, to the point that I returned to this world, but I continue to live in the snow society, my norms are love, friendship, solidarity,” said Zerbino.
FUENTE: AP
