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<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   "Stranded: I've Come from a Plane that Crashed in the Mountains" 3 stars Grave: Documentary account of the 1972 plane crash of a Uruguayan rugby team, of whom 16 people survived in part by eating the flesh of the dead passengers. The story's not new, but this calm telling gives a good sense of the gravity of the survivors. (In Spanish, with English subtitles.) Rated: not rated; probably PG-13 for subject matter Now showing: Varsity   CONTACT THE HERALD Melanie Munk, Features Editor munk@heraldnet.com   Published: Friday, December 5, 2008 'Stranded': Survivors retell horrific story with calm, dignity By Robert Horton Herald Movie Critic The October 1972 plane crash of a Uruguayan rugby team continues to be a subject of fascination, for a couple of reasons. One is that it's an astonishing tale of survival against horrendous odds. The other is the "c" word. The 16 survivors of the crash, stuck in the snow high in the Andes, resorted to eating the flesh of the dead members of their party. Without cannibalism, they would not have lasted 72 days while waiting for rescuers to find them. In movies, the story has been dramatized, both in a sensationalistic 1976 quickie called "Survive!" and the more serious 1993 Ethan Hawke film "Alive." Now a documentary lays out the details, with the cooperation of the survivors. "Stranded: I've Come from a Plane that Crashed in the Mountains" takes a step-by-step approach to the story. The survivors tell it to the camera, explaining the nightmare of living in a broken airplane fuselage half-buried in snow at high altitude. The film takes a calm approach to the ancient taboo of cannibalism, and the survivors clearly have nothing but profound feeling for the dead comrades who allowed them to live. Most of them speak of the act as a "communion," drawing on their Catholic faith. In fact, the survivors are an unusually well-spoken, philosophical and even poetical group. You wonder if their experience in the mountains made them that way. We see footage of an anniversary return to the Andes for many of them, apparently taken in 2002. And of course they have the perspective of time; this is probably a different film from the one that might have been made, say, in 1975. A few vintage newsreels give the tone of some of the tabloid treatment of the first news of the cannibalism, which emerged not long after the first survivors were discovered. There's an eerie moment when the first reporter on the scene asks one of them about what they ate during their ordeal, and the emaciated man tries to talk around the issue (the survivors had agreed to talk to the families of the dead before they took their story public, a plan that fell apart because of the publicity). Watching the movie, and the seriousness and gravity of the survivors, it's difficult to know who would judge their decision negatively. But it will certainly make for a lot of post-movie discussion. Other than some awkwardly handled re-created scenes, "Stranded" director Gonzalo Arijon handles all this material in an intelligent way. It doesn't sound like fun, exactly, but the movie does confirm a true story that's frequently astonishing. READER COMMENTS Be the first to comment. You must be a registered user and verify your e-mail address to post comments to blogs or articles on HeraldNet. To register, click here. To read other terms and conditions, click here. Log out

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