Stranded: I've Come From a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains (2008)

Roberto Canessa, a man in his mid-fifties, is sitting near the top of a mountain range in the Andes, his white hair blowing in the breeze. He seems calm but deeply thoughtful as he weighs some serious philosophical questions. "It was so arbitrary," Canessa says. "Why did it kill some people, while others escaped with only a black eye? You, yes. But you, no. How does destiny work? What is its formula?" The questions Canessa ponders have probably occurred to him many, many times over the years. In October 1972, Canessa was just 19 years old when he and 15 of his friends survived what could only be described as a living nightmare that went on for nearly two and a half months. The 16 young men were members of a college rugby team from Uruguay who were scheduled to play a match in Chile. A small plane was chartered for the trip, and the team, along with some friends and family, hopped on board for what was to be a four-day holiday. The small plane ran into a sudden snowstorm as they were flying over the Andes and it crashed in the mountains. Only 16 of the 45 people on board walked away from the wreckage, and ten days after the crash, the survivors heard a radio broadcast reporting that officials from Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay had called off the search for the missing plane, convinced the situation was hopeless and the young men would never be found. The story of the crash and how the 16 young men survived against all odds was a major international news story in the last days of 1972; two years later it became the basis of a best-selling book, Alive, by Piers Paul Read. Gonzalo Arijon's documentary Stranded: I've Come From a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains isn't the first time the true tale of the survivors has been brought to the screen, but unlike Alive, Frank Marshall's 1993 adaptation of Read's book, or Survive!, the frankly exploitative 1977 film by René Cardona Sr. based on news reports, Stranded allows the 16 men to tell their own story in their own words as they revisit the places where the ordeal took place. For Stranded, Arijon gathered all 16 survivors of the Andes crash and took them back to the mountaintop where they clung to life for 72 days. As they're interviewed, they speak freely, showing a genuine respect for their fallen comrades but also warming to the tale of the great adventure and the resourcefulness that kept them alive -- it's clear the struggle brought these men together in a way ordinary friendships would not. It's only when they come to the most infamous part of their story that they have trouble sharing with Arijon and his crew. Several days after the 16 survivors were found and brought to safety, reporters learned that the young men had resorted to cannibalism, eating the flesh of their fallen friends when all other rations were gone and no other alternatives were available. The cheap-jack Survive! embraces the cannibalism for all the shock value it can muster, but Arijon allows his subjects to present their story in a far more thoughtful manner. While the survivors have had more than 30 years to come to terms with their actions, they also clearly understand the gravity of what they did, without asking for an apology that the world at large can't really extend. Survivor Alfredo Delgado uses the Holy Communion as a metaphor, and he explains that just as the flesh and blood of Christ nourishes the faithful much, the deaths of their friends and loved ones offered them a last chance of survival, and today he and his fellow survivors try to use their lives as a way to honor their late friends. (Significantly, they're still close with the families of those who died in the crash, and they work together to support charitable causes in Uruguay.) In addition to the many interviews, director Arijon also uses reenactments featuring a team of young actors to offer a visual recreation of the 72 days in the mountains, and while the staged footage lacks the harrowing grit of the snapshots taken by the survivors, Arijon has the good sense to keep the scenes from looking too polished, and the actors provide a valuable visual counterpoint to the narration from their real-life counterparts. If the second act of the film goes on a bit longer than necessary, Stranded offers a clear and vivid portrait of the desperate circumstances that befell these young men, and how they found the strength and the force of will to hang on. It's very telling that none of the 16 men profiled in Stranded regards himself as a hero, even if he feels that way about some of the others, and when they speak with their friends and their children as they look back on those ten weeks in the Andes, each beams with a real and humble gratitude. They've come to understand just how valuable being alive truly is, and their story is a grim but potent example of the power of the human spirit. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide