‘Stranded’ looks at survival, death
VIDEO VIPER IN WEEKENDER for Nov. 27, 2009
The tagline to this film is: Could you eat human flesh to survive?
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Surprisingly, this isn’t a horror move. Under the cumbersome name title “Stranded: I’ve Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains,” it’s a documentary about those who survived the 1972 Andes plane crash.
The film was put together by Gonzalo Arijon, a neighbor and friend of some of the survivors.
This film tells in fairly graphic detail what it was like to live for months in the cold, with minimal food and the dead and dying all about them.
My only complaint is the film goes on too long, more than two hours.
The filmmaker had his challenges. About the only real media he had to work with was one photograph taken on the plane in flight, another of the rear of the crashed aircraft, bleak and frozen.
The rest is recreations of events using actors, as well as footage of the survivors today.
Still, he is able to paint a white-knuckled story of death and survival.
They were young, sports-minded Uruguayan rugby players who climbed on a plane, laughing, throwing a ball about, having a good time. They were 19 and naive.
But a terrible storm over the Andes changed all of that. It crashed with 45 aboard, breaking in two.
Survivors talk about the dead bodies surrounding them and the soon-to-be dead. They talk about people dying in their arms.
They talked about search planes overhead that looked in vain for the wreckage. The plane was situated in such a way, it was impossible to spot.
The fact that anyone survived at all is a miracle. What helped them to survive became sensationalistic, but is treated with subtlety and decorum.
Arijon spent hours interviewing each survive, asking probing questions.
The days drifted by. Hunger subsided. Going outside took a great deal of effort.
It seemed whatever they did brought new adversities, from setting off to find help to eating the flesh of those who died. And the survivors do go into some detail. They discussed the possibility of eating the dead. They knew they needed sustenance to live, to attempt to find help. First, they made certain they didn’t know which of the deceased they were consuming. They talked of retching when they took a bit of flesh. We hear about how they sat around and gave each other permission to consume their flesh to sustain life if some survivors should die. The eating of the flesh was done with respect and reverence, almost a spiritual or communion act, which became sensationalized when they were rescued. This real-life experience was made into a fictional film “Alive” You respect the survivors who matured so much during their months in isolation. You understand why they did what they did. You put yourself in their position and wonder how and what you would do. Nature was very unkind to this group, putting up roadblock after roadblock. But somehow, after months of deprivation and cold, two were able to move out and rescue themselves. Those who saw them initially said, “They smelled of the grave.” You wonder how much pain there was reliving their plight more than 30 years later. STRANDED: I’VE COME FROM A PLANE THAT CRASHED ON THE MOUNTAINS • Written and directed by Gonzalon Arijon • In Spanish with subtitles • Runtime: 130 minutes • 2 1/2 stars out of 4
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