directed by J. A. Bayona
If you don’t know what happened in the Andes in 1972, then today’s recommendation will be a beginning of a great adventure. I have to admit that I didn’t know about this disaster before watching, so I didn’t even know how the story ends. And if you’re in a similar position, I hope you don’t read or watch anything before pressing play (except this post, because it’s spoiler free). Promise me that. Because then, the whole experience becomes even more exciting. As I already mentioned, we are taken to 1972, where an Uruguayan rugby team is about to take a flight to Chile to play a match there. The players are very young men around their 20s and they are also travelling with some of their family members or fans. Unfortunately, the plane crashed in the Andes, but it’s difficult for me to explain you why. I’ve read a little bit about that tragedy and all I understand that it could have been a problem with navigation, difficult weather circumstances or a mistake of both pilots. I’m not anyhow competent to describe aviation disasters, so I’ll just finish this point with “they crashed”. Both pilots died, so did several passengers. Luckily, a lot of those young players survived the accident, but they crashed in the mountains, where nobody could help them. Still, the group stays hopeful that they’ll soon be found, because it’s obvious someone will send a rescue team. And indeed, they spot an aircraft flying over them, so they are pretty sure help is coming. Unfortunately, hours are passing, days are passing, and nobody comes. They manage to find a radio in this whole luggage mess and somehow make it work, but perhaps they wished they didn’t… Because at some point they hear the news about their crash and the speaker informs that rescue teams haven’t found anyone and they’ll resume the search in December. Just so you know, the crash happened in October. So knowing that nobody is searching for them and they are left alone in the Andes, they have to stay strong, survive and make another day. Despite being a terrifying catastrophe, there’s also a significant controversial element that made that disaster known about around the world (I didn’t know about it because I wasn’t even born back then, so excuse my lack of knowledge). As days were passing, their food supplies were quickly disappearing and in order to survive, the survivors started eating other dead passengers. Perhaps it’s difficult to imagine for us, but you’ll see in the film how limited their options were. So forcing yourself to cannibalism is one thing, but there was also another issue. The whole team was incredibly religious, like most people living in Uruguay. To them, eating another human being was showing disrespect towards their God. This film is full of difficult discussions about life, faith, friendship and hope, which is definitely its strongest side. But, unfortunately, I believe the actors could have done a better job. As a viewer, I didn’t believe them in their characters and their stories. But as far as I know, they were very fresh actors with little experience, so that might be the reason. Perhaps the director wanted them to be more authentic, but lack of acting skills doesn’t equal authenticity on the screen, and this film is a sad example of that. However, the reason why I’m rating this film quite high is because I also watched the American version from 1993 called “Alive”. And I’m so glad the remake was made… Go see both versions and I bet you’ll appreciate the new one even more. Plus, I’m glad that in a film about an Uruguayan rugby team we have actors from Uruguay (or at least South America) and it’s fully in Spanish. Time to stop americanising every story, because we’ll end up having citizens believing Napoleon spoke English. Although, wait, it’s happening already… Ridiculous. Anyway, a story worth knowing, so make sure to learn about it. This rating is a bit higher just because the 1993 version was horrible, but I do believe that tragedy deserved a more emotional and better acted film.
My rating: 7/10
S.
I have nothing to watch 