The Motorcycle Diaries (Diarios de motocicleta; 2004 film)
In 1952, a young medical student and a biochemist from Argentina set off on a road trip across South America. As they straddled their beaten up motorcycle, the men talked in awed tones of the sights they were about to experience. The record of their trip
Che Guevara is a revolutionary communist and a international t-shirt icon. This is what I knew about Che before I watched The Motorcycle Diaries. Far from the face stamped on t-shirts and posters of rebels all over the world hides a man in all his simplicity and honesty, the Brazilian filmmaker tells the story of a universal initiatory voyage of this honest man.Long before he became a guerrilla revolutionary fighter and icon splashed across countless T-shirts worn by rebels all over the world, the world changed this man and he changed the world with the ambitious journey of Motorcycle Diaries.
Che Guevara; The internation T-shirt Icon
In the spring of 1952, two young men set out by motorcycle(Norton 500 which they’d dubbed “the mighty one”) on an ambitious, footloose journey that they hoped would carry them from Buenos Aires up the spine of Chile, across the Andes and into the Peruvian Amazon.As the book and this film adaptation would have it, this road trip had a such a profound impact on the young Guevara that it ultimately dictated the direction he later took in life. Che was an 23-year-old medical student named Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, whose subsequent career as a political idol, revolutionary martyr and T-shirt icon — Che! — reflects a charismatic, mysterious glow onto his early life. And his companion was the older, a 29-year-old biochemist named Alberto Granado, is still alive and appears at the very end of “The Motorcycle Diaries”
Being my first Spanish movie, I loved the movie. But it is not the only reason I liked it. The movie as other traveler’s story is exciting as it doesn’t stick to one place but keep moving. The cast of the movie makes this an fantastic and fascinating journey one must watch.The movie is also,visually stunning; the cinematography of fog-cloaked mountains, lush, green forests and sunburnt deserts is breathtakingly beautiful enough to serve as a travel advert for the entire continent. There are places which shows Alberto and Ernesto talking the revolution where Che says “A revolution without gunshots. You are crazy” This shows the growing revolutionary within him.
Rodrigo de la Serna in Walter Salles's film "The Motorcycle Diaries."
Gael García Bernal playing Che in the film "The Motorcycle Diaries."
Ernesto’s sombre musings of how a civilisation capable of building such beauty could be destroyed by the creators the polluted urban decay of Lima. The experiences of the this journey will affect Ernesto more than he can imagine. He will grow up to be Ernesto “Che” Guevara, a Marxist revolutionary in the Cuban revolution. Alberto Granado will also follow him to Cuba. There are some scenes which shows the revolutionary Che but those are just limited. And it seems that Salles and screenwriter Jose Rivera aren’t interested in Guevara’s later political life. The night of his birthday, he launches into his first political speech, and then swims across the river that separates the sick from the healthy, symbolically unifying the two river banks. Their care for lepers, turning talk into and a youthful joy makes this movie a must watch. Nevertheless, one of the strongest images is the last, where the real Granado waves to a plane taking off.
Real Alberto Granado as shown in the movie.
The Motorcycle Diaries may not give you an answers as to how a 23-year-old medical student went on to become arguably most famous revolutionary of the latter half of the 20th Century, but it has an undeniable charm that it imbues the memories of youth with a sense of altruism and purity. It’s an incomplete portrait to be sure, but it’s a beautiful depiction of two best friends riding unknowingly into the history. And as Che tells, you also be changed after watching this moving. At least, you will not be the same inside.
Consensus:The riding of the young students to change themselves is as beautiful as one can enjoy.
Movie details
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