Movie Review: The Motorcycle Diaries

Having just started a Netflix subscription, I decided to take advantage of the "Watch it Now!" option which was a major reason for my purchasing decision. Although the current offerings are somewhat limited, there are nonetheless several decent movies in the offering. One of those movies was "The Motorcycle Diaries".

Based on Che Guevara's early travels throughout South America, "The Motorcycle Diaries" is somewhat of a Latin "On the Road" with a moral conscious, and without the self serving hedonism that made the latter detestable in my opinion. While Che Guevara would go on to a life of infamy as a Communist revolutionary and Fidel Castro's right hand man, this movie is not that story. This is the story of a young man discovering a world outside of his home in Argentina and the pain and heartache of people trapped in a world of politics they did not invent and yet are forced to endure.

"Diaries" does not delve too deeply into the more controversial mechanations of Che's mind. It does not present him as hero or villain (although it does present him as more of a larger than life figure than contemporaries remember him, but this is the stuff all autobiographies are made of).

Although the movie is in Spanish, and is, thus, not fare for those who cannot endure subtitles, it is an entirely watchable, sometimes poignant piece of filmmaking. It asks questions that can be asked by those of all ideologies, and paints a potrait of South America in the 1950's as real and substantive as the American classic "The Grapes of Wrath". The faces of miners, the faces of the working class, the people that Che Guevara and Alberto Granado went to lengths to meet.

I give "The Motorcycle Diaries" 3.5 stars out of 4. It is a film that can easily inspire the adventurer and activist in all of us.

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Watch it now option? I have not heard of this...

I tried watching Motorcycle Diaries. Usually, I have no problem with foreign films or subtitles... but I couldn't make it through this movie. This is nothing bad against the movie, but against me. I was too sleepy or something. I fell asleep about 30 minutes into it and didn't get a chance to re-watch it before I had to take it back.

But, since you rated it so highly, I may try again.

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Watch it now option? I have not heard of this...

Yes, it's one of netflix's newer features...and the one that ultimately sold me on them.

I had to watch this movie, because I have read much about Che, and to me, the motorcycle trip this movie depicts was the most compelling aspect of his life. The movie does start kind of slow, but once they hit the road, it picks up.

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Wow. I used to use Netflix... and now I may have to go back to them.

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Gael Garcia Bernal is really good in this film, and having read the book, there are some problems I have with the film, but it's pretty right on for this period in Ernesto Guevara's life (he weren't quite Che back then haha).

Love the description of the film as a Latin "On the Road" with a moral conscious. Che was at a formative point here, and his experiences later in Guatemala during the CIA backed overthrow of the democratically elected Arbenz government would change him into the bloodthirsty killer he became with Castro. Yet even in his later writings, his UN speeches, you can tell he still retained some of that boyish idealism. No excuse for his atrocities, but he wouldn't hold with Cuban subservience to either the USSR or China, and so Castro sent him to Uganda and then to his death in Bolivia.

Haha, I won't go on about Ernesto, though, I'm glad you liked the film. Wasn't the music one of the best parts? Most of the music was recorded by one guy playing most of the instruments.

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Most of the music was recorded by one guy playing most of the instruments.

Really? It WAS a great score, yes.

I have read more on Che than most. Never got entirely through the Bolivian Diaries, but I read Daniel James' biography, which is a fair treatment, and far more extensive than many history books would paint him. Che was, to me, the perfect example of how too often power makes men into the very monsters they sought to destroy. Of all of the revolutionaries, he is to me the most human, and it is by casting him in that light that I find his later acts so alarming.

I, too, found it deviated a bit, but usually in a positive direction.

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Dang it, Gid, you DO tend to say such wonderful things. Yeah, let me find the CD case and I'll tell you who did the soundtrack. Other than the dance songs, it was one guy who over-dubbed his own instruments.

Daniel James' biography is excellent, I've read it. I have the 1968 Time magazine with Ernesto on the cover, and some Cuban notes from the time when he just had them print his signature "Che" (can't make the accent).

George Washington is my favorite revolutionary, because he made revolution and knew when to give up power -- Washington could have been Napoleon in a lot of ways. But Washington's speeches, especially his farewell address speak to me all the time. He warned us not to give into partisanship -- he was a pretty big libertarian ( I use the small "l" because in a lot of ways, I'm a small "l" libertarian), he warned us not to divide up but remain united in the cause of the Enlightenment and the Revolution.

Che tried the same, it just so happened that he got into cahoots with an opportunistic bastard like Castro, somebody who approached the United States first and banned the Communist party at first in Cuba until the USSR started funding his maniac plans. Che screwed up, but he had great ideas.

I'm glad you see both sides of that coin. I'll try to find out the Motorcycle Diaries composer for you, it's an amazing soundtrack.

cheers, gid, glad we can talk again

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P.S. -- no revolutionary has known when to give up power SINCE Washington, I'd say. Lenin, Stalin, Mao -- name others. They had different ideas and ideals, but George Washington KNEW when to say "no" to more power and let his baby grow up. Even Adams and Jefferson had trouble with that score, but they had Washington's example to guide them. He was a true Revolutionary, George Washington, and an example to us all.

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