Gonzalo Arijon’s documentary “Stranded: I’ve Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains” tells the commanding, full-circle tale of the Uruguayan rugby team, “The Old Christians,” their families and supporters, compromised of forty-five privileged, educated and high-spirited individuals with everything to live for, boarding a plane for the first time which was on its way to Chile. Then, as if some kind of monumental force was sent down from the heavens to dampen their spirits and accelerate their transition into adulthood, the plane crashed, on Friday the 13th, October 1972 into the vast remoteness of the inescapably austere Andes Mountains.

Out of the initial forty-five members on the plane, only twenty-five survived the initial crash, and of that twenty-five, only sixteen managed to overcome further amounts of hardship. Their survival was more than mere miracle, they had to resort to extreme measures, such as cannibalism, and had to let go of the confinement of the societal label of what could be described as “humane.” Much of the film is spent watching the survivors reminisce about the actions they had to take in order to simply stay alive. They say that their eating of the dead bodies was nothing more than necessary and that their friends and families would have understood.

They thought of the unimaginable acts as an intimate “Holy Communion.” Arijon neither sensationalises the incidents nor tries to limit the survivors’ justifications. The significance that the survivors display on their faces when they give their lyrical and articulate testimonies of regret is breathtaking, and their almost monumental reflection automatically pulls on one’s strings of sympathy. While it may be difficult to relate to the subjects’ ordeal, the tale of survival is one of the great stories about fundamental human willpower, and there is nothing stopping the deepest of human emotions pouring from the hearts and minds of Arijon’s subjects, many of them friends of his from before the crash as well as after it.

Without many images taken back when the horrors took place, only about two photographs taken at the time are used, one from before the plane went down with the group of youths full of careless ambition and cheerful desire, and the second taken once the plane had crashed – giving us a real-time image of the vast expands of nothing but lost hopes and frozen dreams. This means that Arijon would have to pad the majority of the doc with dramatized re-enactments of the crash itself and the numerous moments of privation. These come across as moving and unnerving for the most part, and at other times unnecessarily lethargic blockages of the overall flow of the films even pace.

Nonetheless, they are mostly silent, and edited to add to the effect of being taken out of one’s own comfort in order to be taken on a powerful journey of discovery. The technical aspects of the film could not be better, and the films subtle yet effect score drifts between being ominous and hopeful, giving a somewhat assured gateway into the psyche of the survivors.

The survivors recall their remarkably perceptive memories with nothing but clarity and respect for their late comrades. Running parallel to the recollections is the trip of the survivors and their grown-up children, who are now the same age as the men were when they were stranded in the mountainous Hell, and although it has been thirty-five years since the incident, the survivors still come across as shocked by their onscreen contemplations.

Their dazed expressions are balanced by their courage and conviction. Watching them tell their story about how they became men over a period of seventy-something days of pure anguish to their children is something of a gift, a rare glimpse into the powerful meaning of the term “family” – whether it be one born through the connection of blood or the binding of souls through an incident where blood is spilt because of the tumultuous behaviour of Mother Earth herself.

As disconcerting as much of the story is, it is essentially a moving tale about the levels people can succumb to when they have no other choice. The respect Arijon instills in his uniting of current and past thoughts and emotions into one coherent documentary is nothing but remarkable. So is the way in which the survivors honour the Ghosts of their friends and family members, which one survivor says live on in spirit, eternally soaring above the snow-covered peaks of the Andes Mountains. “Stranded” is a full on testament and homage to the sheer power of humanity and the potency of wanting to stay alive against all odds, and deserves one’s full attention – watching and listening as the true story is told beautifully by those who lived through it.

Fatac Rating: ****

Stranded: I’ve Come From a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains. Written and Directed by Gonzalo Arijon. Cinematography by César Charlone. Music by Florencia Di Concilio. Featuring: Roberto Francois, Roy Harley, Nando Parrado, Antonio Vizintin. Running Time: 113 minutes. Age Restriction: Not Rated. Festival: Encounters ‘08. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars [A]