It is one of the most astonishing and inspirational survival stories of our time. On Oct. 13, 1972, young rugby team members from Montevideo, Uruguay, boarded a plane for a match in Chile — when all of a sudden, they vanished into thin air.
Many filmgoers may have seen the 1993 movie “Alive,” which gave an account of the survivors’ harrowing efforts to save themselves from death (efforts that eventually included cannibalism) over the course of 10 weeks.
But prior to “Stranded, I Have Come From a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains” no one has seen the survivors tell their story.
It is hard to believe they survived, but it is even harder to believe how powerfully articulate they are about their ordeal and how much they have to teach us about what it means to be alive — and human.
Two days before Christmas, 16 of the 45 passengers miraculously re-emerged. They had managed to survive for 72 days after their plane crashed on a remote Andean glacier.
More than three decades later, the survivors returned to the crash site — know as the Valley of Tears — to describe the power of human strength and how they were able to endure the harsh weather and hunger.
The director Gonzalo Arijon was able to make the harrowing story very effective by using the film’s delicate, otherworldly score, composed by Florencia Di Concilio-Perrin, to add a disturbing air to the proceedings. T
here have been numerous survival films, but none compare to the “Stranded” experience, which included newsreel footage of the original rescue. Arijon skillfully re-created the story to appeal to the audience by showing how heroic two of the survivors were to seek help.
Roberto Canessa, one of the two who went for help, recounted how reliving this horrible experience has changed his life forever.
“Stranded” emphasizes that what kept this deeply religious Catholic group together was its “strong sense of unity and solidarity,” and also that the decision to eat human flesh was done in the respectful spirit of their most serious religious ritual.
Instead of seeming unfair, the scenes in which this decision and its consequences are discussed are the most deeply moving ones in the film. This is a must see film.
Grade: B
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