Buried: The 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche

7.0 stars.

This is a semi-memorable documentary about a really bad avalanche in one of the most avalanche prone resorts in the world. What's the big surprise here? It's obvious that something like this was going to happen in such a hazardous location, and yet, the local "experts" figured they had it under control. It's a sad story of the needless loss innocent lives. These things happened a lot in those days, not so much now 40 years later. We don't see nearly as much of these dangerous occurrences in the United States these days. For some reason our safety awareness has skyrocketed ten-fold since the 80's, yet life expectancy hasn't changed. I find that interesting. This film is very well done. I don't watch a whole lot of documentaries, but got through this one just fine.

I enjoyed the bulk of the documentary. I had never heard of this event, and this was very informative. Great insight into the impact this had on everyone.

However, in the critical points of the story, the background music/sounds were so overwhelming I had to fast forward or turn down so low I couldn't really hear the speaker. Especially the high pitched sounds that are used over and over. Very distracting. Fine line of using sounds to increase the drama and making it so unbearable it has the opposite effect. For a large part of this documentary, the background sounds are simply unbearable. Just let the story stand on its own.

It's kind of wired felling that watching this documentary when I am working for this resort. And the day I watched this is also the day they close the both resort due to high risk of avalanche. So I stay at home and review this said history. It's not as said as I thought, but it remind me should respect our mother nature more next time when I go to Alpine. Ski or working... The whole documantary has many many interview with the person who experience this accident and many valuable materials. It really helps me understand more about avalanche control and many other knowledge about snow and mountains.

As someone who isn't a skier, but is active in outdoor recreation (I'd rather snowshoe), and lives in the mountains of Colorado, I was keenly interested in this movie when I saw the description. I was hoping for something great, and it is indeed great.

Told from the perspective of the people involved, and with no third person narration, this story unfolds with the events leading up to, and after, the avalanche.

You get an idea of what the people were like at the time, how much they've grown since then, and how much this affected them. They are at times very emotional, but always with a sense of honesty. They were mostly people (around my age, as far as I can tell) who were having a good time being ski bums, when tragedy struck. How they dealt with the tragedy is the main thrust of the story, and it is told with brutal forthrightness.

Even if skiing or winter recreation isn't your thing, this is still a movie to watch.

Maybe a bit long? My big issue was the overly loud music in the first 15 minutes, I understand they were trying to describe that many of the employees were ex-hippies but I keep thinking/hoping they would turn it down during the conversation, they don't! Really annoying. I do like the style of no third party "interviewing" just letting the people talk and tell their story. 3-4 of the main characters are not very likeable. That's always a problem when the story line is built to to provide a "sympathetic avenue" and it doesn't work. Overall, a good doc. I'm sure skiers will get more out of it than non-skiers.