Film Review:
Journey Through Life: The Motorcycle Diaries
By Jan Aaron
Director Walter Salle's The Motorcycle Diaries tells how two middle class Argentinean buddies,
the 23-year-old asthmatic med student Ernesto Guevara de
la Serna (Gael Garcia Bernal) and the biochemist Alberto
Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna), set out on a rundown motorbike
to explore the South America they had only known through
books. The realities they found on their 8-month journey
in 1952 radically changed both their lives, most especially
Ernesto's, who would emerge some years later as the charismatic
revolutionary known as “Che.”
Beautifully acted and
elegantly shot by Eric Gautier, the film charts their journey
through the snowy Andes, the intimidating Atacama Desert,
and the lush Amazon basin, ending up in Peru. While serious
in tone, marvelous comic moments contrast the two friend's
personalities. Alberto is a carouser; Ernesto lacks tact.
For classroom discussion, there's Che, the top counterculture
campus icon of the seventies. Who remembers him today? Students
might keep their own diaries to witness their worlds and perceptions.
They might examine film's central theme, which maintains that
great change starts with empathy for others. Are there other
motives?
When their old bike breaks down and their tent blows way,
the two travelers must con their way into meals and places
to spend the night, and ultimately hitchhike to their destinations.
In Venezuela, they run into a hungry itinerant couple who was
kicked off their land; in Peru, they see downtrodden descendent
of once-great Inca civilization. Here, they take off to the
San Pablo leper colony where patients are isolated on an island.
This is life-changing for Ernesto: He forms a bond with the patients,
working without gloves, never displaying disgust or fear, and
drawing himself into their world. The dramatic climax, symbolizing
Ernesto's emergence as a champion of the people shows him leaving
a birthday/farewell party to dangerously swim at night heaving
with asthma to join the patients on the island. (R; 128 minutes;
in Spanish with English subtitles.)#
Another October must is Shark
Tale, a colorful, clever kid and adult friendly animated
film, featuring a fast jive-talking fish (Will Smith) and
a sensitive vegetarian shark (Jack Black), and many similarly
amusing others. (PG; 90 minutes)
