An emotive Spanish documentary that questions human nature, consciousness, and the will to live, Stranded (shown at BAM) was brewing in the mind of Uruguayan/French director Gonzalo Arijón for 35 years. It took this long for him to appropriately delve into the effects of the catastrophic and life-altering plane crash on the young men who were forced to perform otherwise unimaginable acts in order to survive.

On October 12, 1972, a small plane took off from Uruguay for Chile with 40 passengers and 5 crewmembers. Many of the passengers were members of the Old Christians rugby team, well-to-do college students flying for the first time, while others were family members and friends. When traveling over the Andes Mountains through the border of Argentina and Chile, heavy snowstorms racked the plane, destroying the jovial mood inside. As the pilot flew blindly, the plane hit the jagged peak of a mountain and crashed into a snow-filled valley. Some passengers died on impact or shortly after (such as survivor Nando’s mother, and nine days later his sister), while others lived (or at least initially), surrounded by the bodies of friends or relatives.

Many of the survivors talk about not knowing why they were spared while others died, and they openly wonder who decides such fates and why this had to happen. One man remarks that it seemed like a test from God or nature to see what would happen to a group of privileged, healthy and athletic men if they were forced to combat the elements at their most severe without any of the luxuries they had become accustomed to in society. Search parties were unsuccessful due to the harsh weather and the fact that the white plane was like “a worm in the snow” and therefore undetectable. For 72 days until rescue, the men (and one woman who eventually died) formed a separate society inside and outside of the mutilated plane, sharing every source of food, material, and clothing they could find or create, and living together as one “organism” whose survival depended upon the overall cooperation of the group.

Though the story has been told before in the book and film Alive, starring Ethan Hawke, Arijón’s film includes face-to-camera interviews with all 16 survivors, with whom he gained and maintained a level of trust and friendship necessary for full participation and unbridled honesty. Stranded achieves what many documentaries cannot: a sense of collective unconscious and an eerily mutual experience of death’s close proximity. According to Arijón, “The idea of the film is to show what they felt then and what they feel now.” As the men reveal intricate details and candid emotions (of both sorrow and joy), they fully allow the past to reenter their present lives. By taking their children to visit the site, it’s almost as if the men’s souls and bodies never left the snow-covered mountains. They and their children (as well as the children of some who died there) breathe the dust of ever-existing spirits as they pray over the Andes ground. The dead remain inside of the living…quite literally in fact, as it was the material bodies of the dead that offered the others enough strength to keep going.

Viewers of Stranded must be patient. The film is long and at times redundant, but we need this time and repetition for the story to properly unfold, and so that we may process the sensitive information. Moving chronologically, but also occasionally drifting into the present, we are given hints until the full story is gradually revealed through interviews and reenactments. The two most emotionally disturbing and affective aspects of the ordeal are the acts of cannibalism and the avalanche that nearly buried their stationary plane, killing several more people. Both situations are discussed in depth.

The survivors recall how they eventually made the mutual decision, despite the taboos of the outside world and the emotional pain of using their friends as meat, to cut up the bodies in the snow. They ate tiny slivers of muscle fiber, and even bone powder, to sustain their own bodies. As for the avalanche, this second catastrophe hit them unsuspected in the dead of night, covering every single person in a sheet of snow from which they had to dig themselves out. Each survivor speaks of feeling death come over him. As their breath slipped away, they were each momentarily pulled out of this world. They speak of stepping on the heads of their friends while trying to dig them free, and of taking a big gulp of air, as if rising from a swimming pool, only to realize that the peacefulness of death was actually a reward, and one they themselves have not yet been granted.

Despite the depressing nature of this film, a bit of humor and enjoyment is thrown in. The men certainly seemed to have an overabundance of cigarettes, which they would use to warm their hands, and they ate specks of toothpaste for dessert. On one expedition, they found a camera in the tail end of the plane and used it to take photographs. They also listened to broadcasts, on a one-way radio, about their own crash, and they always retained their youthful spirit. During the last of many brave expeditions, two of the passengers finally reached a ranch, which would lead to their rescue. Footage from press conferences held soon after show the men being asked about their acts of cannibalism. As they explain how some viewed the act as Holy Communion, and how they made pacts with one another that, if they died, their bodies should be used for food, our eyes are opened to the natural human will, and to the incredible endurance of these particular men.