“Alive Moives”: Plot and Analysis of the Characters Report

Introduction

Team effectiveness is contingent on the two factors: completion of the task assigned to the team, and enhanced collaboration among team members. It is also believed that the team member’s behavior is greatly influenced by the behavior of one another. Thus, segregation of work among team members is important. Further, another aspect of a successful team is effective leadership. An effective leader is one who gains the “respect and commitment of team members” and thus develops credibility. Thus, it is very important to see how a true leader effectively attains his/her leadership position and how he/she helps to make the team effective. Further, in case of a crisis people come out as different beings and assumes roles, which are almost unlike them. Further, it is during a crisis that establishing one’s leadership is most difficult. In order to understand this process of team building and making an effective leader, this report undertakes the study of 1993 movie Alive based on a true story about a Uruguayan rugby team who survived a plane crash on the Andes Mountains. The report will first provide a brief of the plot of the movie. Then an analysis of the characters will be undertaken to understand who assumed what role in a team in the time of crisis.

Plot of the Movie

The movie opens with the narrator showing a few pictures of the team like that of Nando Parrado and Antonio who was the team captain. The movie then shifts to a monologue by Carlitos after which there is shift of scene to 1972, inside the aircraft of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which was transporting members of the rugby team and their relatives to play a match in Chile. Consequently, the plane crashes on an unknown peak in the Andes Mountains, killing many including the pilots.

Nando goes into a coma but regains consciousness after few days. The survivors were stranded in a frozen mountaintop only in their street clothes. They had limited supply of only a few boxes of chocolates, wine and some assorted snacks. The food had to be consumed sparingly, and so divided in small quantities, however, it ran out quickly. As there was no vegetation or animals on the mountains, the survivors decided to eat onto the flesh of the already deceased comrades. Though the idea met with some resistance in the beginning, they gave in to their higher animal instinct to survive.

Matters run worse, as an avalanche hit the plane and covered the interiors of the fuselage with snow. Few managed to get out of the plane, while eight died, including Antonio. Finally, three survivors went for help and two actually reached a civilization from where they got help. There were in total 16 survivors in all. The film then returns of Carlitos who explains that the survivors return to the crash site and buried their comrades under a pile of stone. It is marked with a cross.

Analysis

How did the teamwork in a crisis? Who was the leader or was there no leader? Does the statement made by Robert Quinn² “Leaders are at the top of their game when they act from their deepest values and instincts” hold true. What about the belief that leaders are at their best in a crisis when they inculcate their fundamental instincts? An analysis of the movie Alive will help provide a wider view regarding the present arguments and help to enumerate the truth in the arguments.

Alive is a story of a rugby team facing a mortal crisis. The film exemplifies the human instincts that help the team survive in face of mortal peril through use of sheer instinct. Further, it also shows how a few naturally evolved to assume the role of a leader, or assumed the role of a task facilitator or role builder. The movie shows how a few, Antonio, Nando Parrado, and Roberto Canessa, assume role of leaders and help the whole team survive. Thus as these players showed their leadership qualities in highest of crises, their natural leadership quality was exposed even for regular activities. Thus as they reached back their normal life, they became leaders in their own rights. This is what has been expressed through the narration of Carlitos at the end of the movie.

At the beginning of the movie, after the plane crashes on the snow-capped mountain, the team seems to be in a loose state with no direction. Somewhat baffled due to the present situation. However, as the team, advances the characters gain more gumption, and they become a team. This is the forming stage portrayed in the movie.

In the storming stage, different ideas flow out of the team members. The crisis on the Andes Mountain brought out true leaders among many of the team members. The two medical students in the group immediately assumed relationship-building and task facilitating roles. Further, they also assumed the roles of leaders as their words were most accepted in a situation where medical help was of utmost priority. Then the team captain, Antonio also showed leadership quality as he naturally had the trust and influence over the rugby team. He is the one who suggests that the ration left should be sparingly consumed.

As the days on the mountain move forward, the survivors are more resigned to the fact that they will not be rescued, and so they dwell in perfect harmony. They work according to the requirement of the situation. They even take up to eat human flesh in order to survive starvation.

In the end, there is the performing stage. Here the team truly delivers its goals. The goal, in case of the rugby team, is the need to find help and be rescued. The task-facilitating role of the two characters in movie is explicit viz. Canessa and Parrado. They went on a 12-day trek across the frozen mountain to find any trace of civilization from where they may find help for themselves and for their comrades. This shows how the two team members chose to help the team be rescued from the mountains. This exemplifies the true quality of a task facilitator who aims to work to achieve its outcome or objective. Thus, they become the ones who provided direction, information, urge, elaboration, processor, and enforcer in the team.

Another leader who emerged in this crisis was Nando who proposes that they should not wait for the rescuers to find them, instead of venture out to find their route out. He is the one who proposes to move west as he believes Chile must be closer. Moreover, he sets forth the idea that they must resort to eating their dead comrades’ flesh in order to survive. Thus, Nando shows natural instinct and intellect in face of crisis to emerge as a leader.

Reference

Whetten and Cameron. (2005). Working with People – MGST 495. #9.

Robert E. Quinn, “Moments of Greatness: Entering the Fundamental State of Leadership”. Harvard Business Review. 2005.