As Che has correctly put it, "This isn't a tale of heroic feats. It's about two lives running parallel for a while, with common aspirations and similar dreams."
The Motorcycle Diaries is a movie adaptation for Ernesto Che Guevera's book by the same name. The movie portrays the journey of the legendary Che with his friend Alberto Granado through the hearts of South America. One semester away from his graduation as a Doctor, Ernesto Guevara de la Serna - known to his friends as Fuser and better know to the world as Che - decided to set out on a road trip with his friend Mial. Their quest is to see things they have only read about in books about the continent on which they live, and to finish that quest on Alberto's thirtieth birthday on the other side of the continent in the Guajira Peninsula in Venezuela. On this trip, they meet strangers who became a part of their lives, who made them realize what great pain their country is in. And before he could change the world, the world changed him.
Originally titled Diarios de motocicleta, The Motorcycle Diaries is a movie that can be enjoyed as a beautiful, picturesque feature on the Amazon and the deserted and populated lands of South America, it can be enjoyed as a story of two friends set out to answer life's calling or it can be enjoyed as a feature on the early lives of Che Guevera, but it is a film that you would enjoy nonetheless.
This movie would give you a glimpse of the Che for who he truly was and not the hip, social icon that most of us today know him as. The film does not preaches any morale, neither does it shows the protagonist as the great Che Guevara, the key figure of the Cuban revolution who fought beside Fidel Castro: it doesn't need to, as the subtlety of transformation in the mind of Che is quite beautifully depicted through the eyes of the protagonist. The journey has given him the insight that he must devote himself to changing the inequality and poverty of South America, his America. The events that followed this Motorcycle journey are provided in voice over, black and white footage of people's faces, and a final scene in Havana at the ending of the film. After that, there was nothing more that needed to be said.
Gael Garcia Bernal, who portrays the character of Che, shows him not as a hero but as an ordinary man with an extraordinary character and of an undaunted spirit. A man vulnerable with his frequent bouts of asthma attacks, a man who swims across a river in the middle of the night just to celebrate his birthday with the diseased in the leper colony. The character growth for both Geal and Rodrigo, who plays Alberto Granado, is gradual and intense. The background score by Gustavo Santaolalla helps a lot to build up the mood for the story, especially the tune when Che and Alberto are traveling in the Mambo-Tango would continue to haunt you long after you have finished watching the movie.
Overall, a very rare film which depicts a central theme which we can all relate to at some point of our time in our lives: loss of innocence.
