SUPERVIVIENTES DE LOS ANDES (SURVIVE)

Mexico, 1976, 85 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Rene Cardona.

Survive was considered rather exploitational at the time of its release, coming so soon after the experience of the Andes, when the Uruguyan football time and their plane crashed into the Andes and they survived only by being able to eat the flesh of their friends. The story created quite a sensation in its time – and the question of whether this kind of behaviour is appropriate for human beings – or for survival. However, in retrospect, the film is a straightforward presentation of what happened, how the team and other passengers reacted, their decisions, the realism of what happened in terms of the cannibalism.

Twenty years after the events, Frank Marshall directed Alive with a cast led by Ethan Hawk and with John Malkovich sitting on the mountains reflecting on the religious dimensions of what happened, especially the Eucharistic overtones and the Body of Christ.

1. The purpose of this film, entertainment, information, exploitation? In its original Mexican form? As edited and adapted for America and English-speaking audiences? What merit does the film have?

2. How much of the original Mexican film is evident? As Americanized? For better, for worse?

3. The presentation of the facts, the reconstruction of the accident, survival? In good taste or not? Sensationalizing or reporting?

4. The focus of the film and its advertising on cannibalism, the fact of what happened, of what happened versus how it happened? The build-up of hunger, the need for survival, the arguments pro and con, the religious emphasis, the decisions? The method, the close ups of the incisions and cutting away, the drying out of the flesh for eating? The eating? Is it necessary for us to see this kind of thing to know what is possible?

5. The film's build-up of the people on the flight, the characters, the group? Relatives, the crew?

6. The ordinariness of the flight, the impact of the crash and its violence, the reasons? The impact of sudden death? Injury?

7. The theme of survival and its visual presentation: the cold and the snow, isolation, the futility of the searching parties, people dying and giving up, charity and support, food and water and warmth? The pathos of people dying helpless? The pathos of those who survived for weeks?

8. The strength of the sportsmen, their going to the wreckage to save medicine, the radio and its ruin? The irony of their being so close to a chalet?

9. The eating of the flesh as fitting into the context of the accident and survival? The renewed hope?

10. The decision to go searching, the man who went back, the seeming hopelessness? What motivated the men to go on?

11. The picture of their endurance, the descent? The almost giving up? The man on the donkey almost not seeing them?

12. The transition to joy, the rescue?

13. The melodrama of the return with its joy for some and sorrow for others?

14. A good disaster film? Its values? Satisfying curiosity, instructing?