Carlos Páez Rodríguez (70)
was in Guatemala on Wednesday, in Peru on Thursday and now, Friday morning, in a Buenos Aires as leaden as his situation.
Falling from a plane in the Andes and emerging safe and sound after 70 days of hardship has literally led him to live on airplanes.
To come and go from Uruguay to tell the world a story as famous as the Bible but even more captivating.
A story that “even Koreans” get excited about and about which almost everything is known but which still seems not to win and regenerate as times change.
The son of Carlos Páez Vilaró - who died in 2014 - orders coffee and assumes that the possibility of an Oscar gives a new character to the story, tinges it with a certain novelty.
Also social networks: the survivor, who has become the official spokesperson for the group of those who returned, is amazed by the number of followers he now has on Tik Tok.
In part, it is due to the shocking premiere of
The Snow Society
, a film that took
Netflix
by storm , perhaps the definitive film about the Uruguayan feat, made by Spanish director Juan Carlos Bayona.
“I went from 20 thousand followers to having 301 thousand,” confesses "Carlitos", having just woken up, without showing any fatigue.
The enthusiasm that runs through him is enviable.
It seems as if he had been rescued from the mountain yesterday.
-Is there something that changed? A novelty?
-It's not that the story has changed because it is essentially the same.
But I think that the discovery of the film The Snow Society, the discovery of director Bayona, was giving a voice to those who died...
Carlos Páez Rodríguez poses for a photo in Buenos Aires on March 1, 2024. Photo: Mariana Nedelcu.
-The dead spoke.
-Yeah.
And those who died were as important as the living.
That is the big issue.
We were always the survivors of the Andes.
When the film premiered in Montevideo, the applause for all the families was overwhelming.
That speaks of unity and is good as a message to the world.
But the fact that the narrator is Numa Turcatti, who dies, is something unusual.
The narrator always lives.
But in this case it is not like that.
In Viven, the narrator is me, John Malkovich plays me.
But I live...
-Then it seems that something is settled, right?
-A crack closes.
A crack that existed between those of us who came out of the mountain alive and the rest...
-Was it uncomfortable?
-And yes, in the sense that there were 26 books written, three films, nine documentaries, every year there was a reason to retell the story, to open the wounds again... and now everyone is satisfied and happy with the movie.
Many have traveled to Venice to see it at the Film Festival and that crack has closed.
Carlos Páez Rodríguez is 70 years old.
-What did it mean for you to embody your father?
-The hardest thing that happened to me in my life.
When Bayona asked me, I told her to let me consult with my psychologist.
Bayona tells me that it was a healing project.
The psychologist told me the same thing, that he was a healer.
But I'm not an actor.
It's hard for you to act.
You have to get into everything fully.
I had to get into the story of my father, who was the best-known guy in the history of Uruguay at that time, you have to get into the skin of a monster...
-It seems to be possible because the moment in which he reads the list of survivors is truly emotional...
-I achieve it after nine takes.
To fight with Bayona.
For me it was something very strong...
Video
This was reported by Páez Vilaró from the San Fernando airport.
-It is shocking that it was his father who gave the official list of survivors. You might not have been among the living...
-Yes, when he says “Carlos Paez Vilaró, my son…” I could not have been there.
The ratio was one to three.
-Did your father never abandon the conviction that you were alive?
-Never, but a little prompted by my mother, by that thing about a mother's hunch.
He did something crazy, moving to the mountain range to look for a lost plane.
But he did it, he did it...
-Why do you think we return to this story again and again? It seems that no one gets tired of listening to it, that it has no expiration date...
-It is a story that belongs to the world.
It is an extraordinary story, starring ordinary people.
You could have been there and that is the value.
People who have the ability to adapt to an adverse situation and get ahead.
I was a good-for-nothing boy and suddenly I became a useful boy.
The other day a journalist asked me the best question I've ever been asked in my entire life.
The rugby plane crashed in the Andes Mountains.
-Which?
-He asked me when you were born, on October 13, when the plane went down, or on December 22, when they were rescued.
And I said: the day the plane crashed... For me, dad solved my life, so did my mom... I was a spoiled person who ate breakfast in bed.
-And what was the first thing that appeared or that you perceived in you?
-The first thing was to notice the pain, I had no idea about anything and I looked at (Roberto) Canessa and asked him: “Canessa, is this what you call a disaster?”
And then my role emerged, that of adding color and excitement to the days.
My role was “Life is Beautiful”.
After the avalanche, the roles were accentuated and the story became what it was.
We transform ourselves into a machine in order to live.
-What was pain management like?
-Team up.
When one fell, there was another to pick him up.
When someone had joy to share, it was offered to the rest of the group.
It was 100% teamwork.
-I feel like there is nothing they haven't asked you. History is always fascinating, but is there something it hasn't told?
-I think they asked me everything.
But now on social networks there are two questions that appeared about the film.
One is why did they smoke so much?
It seems ridiculous, but there were two owners of a tobacco company on the plane who were carrying two suitcases full of bundles of cigarettes to give as gifts.
And the other question is why didn't they make a fire?
Do you know what it's like to make a fire there, set fire to a rubber band in the middle of the snow?
We had a lighter and we had to turn it on when a plane arrived, at the right time.
It was difficult…
Only 16 of the 45 occupants of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 were saved.
They were rescued 72 days later.
-Did the era of social networks give greater magnitude to the story?
-Of course, TikTok put us in dialogue with new generations, who did not know this story.
Guys now stop me at airports.
It's crazy.
Boys of 13 or 14 years old who now die with history.
We explode with followers.
There is madness and the demand for conferences has also skyrocketed.
I gave 40 conferences a year and this year I have at least 100…
-Is it always the same answer when they ask you about the way you decided to eat human flesh?
-Support file.
I have it well put together because it is what it is.
-In the film there is a scene that is disturbing. It lasts very little, but you can see the ribs of all the dead people they have eaten. The peeled ribs. The question is: Was it like that? Did it go to the bone?
-It's like that.
It was all that was possible.
Once you get used to it... it's a process towards naturalness.
If you have never seen a dead person in your life... you start to normalize everything.
A key scene in the film is when Canessa tastes food and notices that she is starting to decompose.
But she is in a green meadow and she doesn't need it anymore, so she covers her up and buries her.
This is what indicates that it will no longer be necessary to continue with this.
-Is the Snow Society the product of chance, of spontaneity?
-Yes, it arose spontaneously in the same way it would have arisen to you.
-Is this story missing an Oscar?
-Don't know.
I think we already gave him the Oscar.
Viven was a very respectful film, but too Gringolandia.
This, however, is something else.
There is a group of 70 thousand angry fans.
There is no way to make them understand that this is the total movie.
-Every day, when you wake up, do you have memories of the mountain?
-Always, always an image crosses my mind at some point during the day.
-The book that his father wrote, “Between my son and I, the moon”, also deserves a movie…
-And that is what we are going to do.
Look, 200 thousand people visit Casa Pueblo per year.
A hundred thousand want to know our story.
Carlos Páez Vilaró, father of "Carlitos", died in 2014.
-And what was your relationship with your father like after the rescue? I mean, your father was the hero of a moment in history until you appeared and that place belonged to you...
-The natural competition you have with your old man.
My old man was an unusual guy.
There was one lane for me and another for him.
My dad was the most famous guy in Uruguay.
But after many years of therapy, things are overcome.
EMJ