I really don’t know much about the life of Ernesto “Che” Guervara (besides recognizing his face on t-shirts) which is, for some, important when watching a film about his life: especially one that skews his life, like The Motorcycle Diaries allegedly does.

The Marxist revolutionary who helped Fidel Castro overthrow the Cuban government and attempted the same in Bolivia is historically a wicked man who executed hundreds of people in order to establish a government that brought further oppression to millions of people. The Motorcycle Diaries depicts Guervara unequivocally as a pure saint.

Many people have a problem with this. I don’t, and here’s why. First of all, The Motorcycle Diaries comprises nothing but the space of about a year from 1952-53 when Ernesto (Gael Garcia Bernal) traveled from his home in Buenos Aires to Caracas, Venezuala with his friend Alberto (Rodrigo de la Serna). Ernesto never meets Castro and there isn’t any more Communism in the film than there is in A Christmas Carol. This is merely a film about an idealistic young man.

Secondly, I don’t care if the portrayal is historically inaccurate. I don’t care about Che or who he really was; all I care about is this character and how I can become him. Ernesto is a young Jean Valjean, an Oskar Schindler crossing the South American continent penniless. As he meets the poor folk of the continent, he comes to love them more with each passing day. Ernesto is ever ignorant of his own suffering and ever attentive to the suffering around him. What little money he has he gives away. Though he suffers severely from asthma, he focuses on doctoring others. Though he’s born into an upper-middle class family, he refuses to put himself above the folks like many others do. A refusal, on the part of the filmmakers, to admit fault in a ruthless man? Perhaps. But, I like it.

It’s aside from the main character that I begin to lose interest with the film. There is no structure to the story here. It’s a slowly moving, episodic biopic that covers a few interesting moments and a whole lot less interesting ones. Ernesto and Alberto go lots of places, meet lots of people, and face lots of trials, but there’s very little of particular significance to point out.

The view is great though. We get to see the whole of the western side of the South American continent. From larger South American cities in the fifties to views of Incan remains in Peru that probably aren’t any different today, we see it all. More importantly, perhaps, is that we see it from Guervara’s perspective. We don’t just see the land, we see that people – and that’s what The Motorcycle Diaries is all about.

Spanish

Year: