Snow Circle on Netflix: Why weren’t the survivors convicted of cannibalism?

In 1972, a young Uruguayan rugby team saw their plane crash in the Andes mountains. 17 of the 45 passengers died in the crash, and the rest had to survive for months in extreme conditions. Sixteen people will come out of this nightmare alive. The story is told by Juan Antonio Bayona in the film The Circle of Snow – AlloCiné shares the opinion here.

The special nature of this plane crash is based, among other things, on proven cases of cannibalism. To avoid starvation, the survivors had to eat the corpses of the dead passengers. Le Cercle des neiges chooses to focus mainly on the accident and the two months of survival, leaving aside the consequences, namely how these acts of cannibalism were received by public opinion.

When survivors are found, rumors of cannibalism swirl around the tragedy. The rumor was finally confirmed at a press conference held in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, on December 28, 1972, six days after the survivors’ return. Some of them reveal that they had no choice but to eat the bodies to satisfy their hunger.

Religion and medicine

In this press conference, religious comparisons are used to justify the actions. Primarily because most survivors are Catholic, but also trying to accept the truth that scares people. Thus, they take as an example the Last Supper – that is, the Last Supper of Jesus Christ on the day before the crucifixion.

“When we ran out of food, we thought of Jesus and how he gave his body and blood to the apostles at the last supper.“, one of the survivors, Eduardo Delgrado, is known to reveal This article from the New York Times Published in 1972.

Some choose religion, while others turn to medicine. Thus, cannibalism is also compared to “Heart transplant“. At the time, the practice was still new – the first one was carried out in 1967 – and the topic remained taboo. But it was a matter of everyone giving meaning to their actions.

In an interview with AlloCiné, director Juan Antonio Bayona explains that ex-survivors continue to use these two comparisons today, emphasizing the narrow line between mind and nature and body for survival.

Given the special circumstances, the survivors were not prosecuted. On December 28, 1972, representatives of the Archdiocese of New York defended them and declared that the survivors were acting.justified wayEventually, the churches of Chile and Uruguay, as well as Pope Paul VI, granted absolution to the survivors.

Snow Circle is available on Netflix.