The Survival Story

Society of the Snow (La sociedad de la nieve, Spanish; 2023)

Director: J.A. Bayona

We have discussed this movie before. Check here.

This is yet another version depicting one of the greatest human stories about survival. On October 13, 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 flew over the Andes from Uruguay to Chile. It was carrying 45 passengers on board, mostly Uruguayan rugby players. It crashed into the most inaccessible part of the mountain. Presumed to be dead by the authorities after failing to find them in their search-and-rescue, the 29 initial survivors were left to fend for themselves.

A few died due to their injury, and some in an avalanche that ensued. Exposed to the element and having no food to eat, they had to use the last of their survival skills, teamwork, and spiritual faith to hang on to their dear lives. When food became non-existent, somebody suggested that they eat the remains of the dead.

Initially, the passengers thought a rescue mission would ensue. After seeing planes just fly off and hearing on the radio sourced from the crashed plane that search-and-rescue missions had been called off, they became desperate. Caring for the injured, keeping themselves warm, getting food, and getting help were their immediate priorities.

The philosophical question of survival cannibalism played again and again amongst the survivors. On one hand, the thought of eating human flesh was repulsive. On the other hand, they were not killing another to eat them. They were merely consuming the cadaver, which will be consumed by creepy crawlies and bugs anyway. To put it to good use, like preserving the biggest asset to mankind, i.e. life, is worth it. Farm owners or cattle breeders are generally not too close with their flock, as they know their final destiny. Hence, on the flight, many of the deceased were known to each other. To eat the flesh of someone they knew must be in bad taste (pun unintended).

One of the survivors who refused to consume human flesh at all accounts succumbed, but he also had other physical injuries. Finally, the tenacious human spirit added with intelligence and a stroke of good luck or divine intervention*, two of them scaled mountains and ravines to finally get help. 

The movie's final moments end with some sombre thoughts. The emotional trauma that the survivors must have endured must have been enormous. 

When it all started, cheery smiles!

Out in the cold!

The actual footage during the final rescue in 1972.

* Does 'luck' or 'divine intervention' still play a role after all the passengers have gone through? It is natural to wonder whether it came too late.

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Only so much we can blame our genes!

Bones and All
Director : Luca Guadagnino

There is only so much we can blame our parents for our miseries. Our parents give us building blocks to start life with. That foundation sets us the footing to let us grow. We acquire some favourable traits and some not-so-pleasant ones. We do not say much when things go our way. The moment something goes against our way, we jump at our parents for transmitting that offensive gene as if they were in control of what chromosome gets transmitted and what does not. Like an old friend once told me, we must take their diseases and other chromosome-related unfavourable traits just like how we willingly accept their wealth in their will.

This bizarre romantic horror film is about an 18-year-old girl, Maren, who has to move schools and towns as she tends to eat human flesh whenever she feels love. She grows up with her single father. After her last fiasco at a sleepover party, her father had enough. He leaves her money, birth certificate, and background information about herself and bolts off. Maren goes on a road trip for self-discovery.

Maren discovers that she is adopted. She embarks on a self-discovery journey to confront her mother about her abandonment. On her journey, she encounters many people with the same cannibalistic tendencies. She finally finds her biological mother is a dangerous inmate cooped in a mental asylum.

It is a twisted tale of discovery, camaraderie and performing tasks with love, not just a chore to complete.

At the end of the day, there is only so much we can blame our heritage, genetics and upbringing. Once we reach an age of cognisance, we should be empowered to hold the bull by the horns to steer it in the desired direction. Unable to do so, at least we should adapt our bodies to protect ourselves so as not to be taken for a ride and thrown off balance. That is what we call a balancing act.

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Guess who's for dinner?

I used to think that only isolated primitive tribal people practised cannibalism. Long before there was such a thing as headhunters, the employment agency, the indigenous people of Sarawak, were the original headhunters. They were fabled to kill their enemies, shrunk their skulls and wore them as ornaments. Even in modern times, consuming the human brain was a delicacy amongst the tribes in Papua New Guinea. We learnt about Kuru, the first human prion-linked disease, way before the world heard of Cruetzfelt-Jakob disease (CJD) or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE, Mad Cow Disease). Kuru was transmitted when attendees of tribal funerals would consume the brain of the recently departed in their honour.

I was made to believe that only primitive ‘uncivilised’ natives only had such practices. The colonial masters were quick to label anyone who had built the courage to oppose their rule as cannibal as they did to Thugees in India and Mao Mao people in Kenya.

The Thuggees were the local dwellers who were doing nothing more than defending their jungles against the colonisers who were keen to appropriate the forests to mine the minerals allegedly found there. To justify their usurping these lands, the colonists labelled them professional robbers and murderers. Just because the locals prayed to a ferocious-looking Kaali, Thurga, with weapons, protruding tongue while stepping on asuras, they were labelled as cannibals. The British ended up stealing the land and appropriating the words ‘jungle’, which the locals called a forest. ‘Thugs’ made it into English to refer to a violent, lawless person.

In mid-century Kenya, the British colonists, in their expertise to bring nations to their knees via their divide-and-rule tactics, started spreading lies about a group of aggrieved British Kenyan soldiers who became freedom fighters. They were Mau Mau warriors. Their reputation became so bad that mothers used to scare their crying kids that the Mau Mau people would snatch them and eat them if they did not quieten down and sleep.

The implication of all these is that cannibalism is the limit of human cruelty. Once one eats up a fellow human, he has crossed the point of no return.

Surprise, surprise.

The practice of consumption of human flesh is not alien to Europe. It peaked in the 17th century when it was a rage to consume human meat. There was even a lucrative black market to source Egyptian mummies. It was believed that the medicinal composition of the mummies and the mystic aura surrounding the carcasses gave them special powers. It was fashionable as late as the late 18th century among the elite society to hold private 'mummy-feasting' parties. Then there was a symbolism of the Eucharist representing Jesus' human body, consumed during Holy Communion as if justifying man ingesting another.

Then there is the legacy of Dracula and the pseudo-medical elixir of vitality, including human blood. Even to date, like a cat, humans eat the placentas of their offspring directly or in concoctions.

Guess what (or who) is for dinner? And I wonder who is coming for dinner tonight or who is for dinner tonight?

Are these thugs?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.