Alive
Directed by Frank Marshall
- adventure
- drama
- history
The story
The amazing true story of a Uruguayan rugby team's plane that crashed in the middle of the Andes mountains, and their immense will to survive and pull through alive, forced to do anything and everything they could to stay alive on meager rations and through the freezing cold.
What it’s like
Stark, sun-bleached snowfields and blinding white glare give way to dim, grey-blue interiors of the crashed fuselage, with the cold rendered as something you can almost feel in the breath and frostbitten hands. Frank Marshall shoots much of it with wide, exposed landscapes that make the young men look small against the peaks, while the tighter scenes inside the wreck lean on muted earth tones, damp wool and low, practical light. The score is restrained, mostly swelling strings and wind under long stretches of near silence, so the grind of waiting registers as much as the set pieces. Its vibe is bleak endurance with flickers of camaraderie, and the pacing is deliberate, built around slow days and hard decisions rather than constant action. The intensity is high: an airplane crash opens the film, and it includes frostbite, injury, sickness and the grim choices of starvation, with some brief, sharp violence and disturbing imagery, though little gore. It suits viewers who want a harrowing, character-driven survival story and can handle its cold, bleak weight, rather than a comforting watch.
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