Survivre

After reading somewhere that this film was never released in the UK, I thought I'd write & let you know that after reading the book by Piers Paul Reid ( which was the only book ever to make me cry ) full of emotion, My friend & I went to the Odeon in York to watch this film which in the 70's was very graphic for the time, you have to put it into perspective of the time, we had St Johns ambulance active in the cinema when the Exorcist was shown, sex & violence were censored heavily let alone cannibalism, anyway my mate fainted but to this day Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa have been hero's & an inspiration to me since the 70's

This movie made so much money for Paramount Pictures that it made the producers went on to produce many big films. All they did was pick up a Low-budget Mexican film, clean it up, and ad some scenes and released it wide all across America. The plot is based on a true story of the Andes Mountain Plane crash where the survivors had to eat human flesh to survive. (Disney later remade this film and called it ALIVE and hired many white casts(?!). At least SURVIVE is true to real life as they were mostly Mexican on that plane). The so-called graphic violence is cheap and cheezy and is shown un-cut on Tv alot. Recommened if you are into these type of film. The director went on to make Universal tons of money in GUYANA CULT OF THE DAMMED 4 years later.

The highest compliment one can pay to this movie is that it's no better or worse than the 1993 version of the same story ("Alive"), despite its having been produced on a much lower budget, with more primitive special effects. The problem is that if you're familiar with the story, there are no surprises left; you're simply waiting for the inevitable. It must be noted, however, that the "gore" factor has been considerably hyped up: the scenes that are "not for the squeamish" amount to a total of two. (**)

This dubbed Italia effort, the first movie, recreating the events of that tragic day in 1972, when that soccer team crashed in the Andes, is indeed involving, despite some cheaply filmed shots, that required a background screen. The surviving victims, some in a great deal of pain, finally had to resort to eating their friends. Two embarked off to get help, the second time succeeding in their quest. We learn from the first effort, if they had gone in the opposite direction, they would of come across the town. But you're in the Andes, remember. You couldn't hypothesize on where the closest help is. During this crisis of starvation and stuck in this below O blizzard, you almost feel like your one of them in this hellish ordeal. This movie which in my opinion, was better than the remake 16 years later, doesn't hold back on the dissection of these dead nude bodies, where for the living, this was their only source of nourishment. Be warned, some of the canniballism scenes may disturb but for you strong stomachs out there, this is a recommended viewing experience of a tragedy, you'll never forget, where hope and belief had to be kept strong. An inspirational drama, with an inspirational soundtrack.

Survive! (1976)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

American version of the Mexican film SUPERVIVIENTES DE LOS ANDES, which is based on the true story of the soccer team whose plane crashed in the Andes Mountains and those who survived had to resort to cannibalism in order to live. SURVIVE! was cut down by 26-minutes, had a documentary style narration added and of course was dubbed in English. When I saw director Rene Cardona's name I was expecting some major exploitation and while there's certainly some, this here is actually fairly well-made when you consider how small the budget is. Most people are going to know this story from the American film ALIVE and if you're looking for an uplifting look on the subject then that's the film to see. This one here was obviously rushed into theaters to try and capture some of the hot buzz around the story and apparently both version were a major financial success. I was surprised to see how effective the plane crash sequence was here as they had to use some good editing to sell it. The performances aren't all that bad and there's no question that the story itself keeps you interested. There's a lot of focus on the cannibalism in the film and there are several rather graphic moments where we see the skin being removed and eventually eaten. These scenes aren't nearly as bloody as the film's reputation would have you believe but they're still going to turn some off. The American version runs 85-minutes and features some narration added to the material just so they could cut out a bunch of dialogue sequences that I'm sure set everything up. The original Mexican version clocks in at 111-minutes and contains more scenes of the military trying to locate the down plane and one survivor's father has a much bigger role in the Mexican version.