Stranded
March 2, 2008 at 4:46 p.m.
Even at 10 a.m. on Saturday, after very few hours of sleep and drinking too much the night before, I was captured by Stranded.
I'd heard the story of the Uruguayan rugby team before, but to watch the survivors speak about the incident, 30 years afterward, and to watch them struggle to keep their voices steady and their eyes dry, was extremely powerful. Unfortunately, I had to leave partway through the movie to go to work, but this is a film I'm going to hunt down at Ninth Street Video. The director has done his job because I can't wait to view the rest of the film.
My biggest complaint about Stranded is that I was unsure in the beginning whether the reenactments were supposed to be reenactments of if they were simply footage of other, modern-day young people getting on a plane and having a good time. After a half hour I figured it out, but it made for a confusing beginning to the film. I also think that having all the survivors speak in the film, or see them in a shot together instead of individually, would have strengthened the documentary.
I liked the director's approach of having the survivors sort of walk the audience through their experiences, day by day, and pausing at certain moments to reiterate the importance and size of what was happening. For example, the most heart-wrenching part for me was to listen to them speak about their thoughts of cannibalism and how they discussed it and reached the point. They knew it was taboo but they all thought about it individually before discussing it as a group. And it was interesting to see their different reactions when they finally did make the decision; some thought of it as a very spiritual, Communion-like experience, and others mentioned that it was the point where they lost contact with their humanity. The director did these reenactments very tastefully; I was afraid it would become grotesque, but he focused more on the survivors' descriptions than acted scenes. And it was so amazing and moving to watch the survivors transform throughout the film. In the beginning, when they spoke, they seemed more or less composed. But by the cannibalism point, many of the men had tears in their eyes while recounting this event that happened over 30 years ago. It's evident to see that the plane crash is something that has shaped their entire lives, and rightfully so.
Stranded is worth seeing, but audiences should know the story of the Uruguayan rugby team beforehand and prepare themselves for a sad, raw film.
- Hannah Martine
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