Awake the fighting spirit in us!

Alive! (1993)

I remember watching the trailer of this dubbed (Mexican) film named 'Survive!'. My sister and I were fascinated by the cinematography and the desperation of the passengers to survive in the freezing temperatures of the Andes. We never watched it till now. After the MH370 mystery, I thought of giving it a go.

This survival film shows the fighting spirit of humans to live in the treacherous, freezing, barren mountainous terrain of the Andes over two months. A group of young boys and relatives were travelling from Uruguay to Chile. As they descended, misjudgement caused the plane to lose a wing, part of her fuselage and the other wing and finally crash in the middle of nowhere, making it impossible for anyone to search and rescue. With no telecommunications and a limited food supply, staying alive in the cold was a Herculean task. If that was not enough, an avalanche hit the unfortunate victims, killing more passengers who were not killed earlier.

The dilemma that the survivors had to endure to stay alive in a freezing mountain with no vegetation is the conundrum of resorting to cannibalism, feeding on the flesh of the dead. The question of God and retribution was constantly argued. Most of them relented to severe hunger pangs. One succumbed to starvation.

I quite enjoyed the movie, as the events were real, and the screenplay kept to the origin story. All five crew members perished, and 29 of the 45 passengers met their maker.

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