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When not posed in his beret on the front of a counter-culture T-shirt, Ernesto (Che) Guevara is best known as the Latin revolutionary who helped Fidel Castro win the Cuban Revolution and later was killed trying to foment other revolts against the establishment in 1960s Latin America.
But, at the age of 23, the well-heeled Guevara was a footloose medical student in Argentina. In 1952, riding a battered, 1939 Norton motorcycle, Guevara and his best friend -- a student biochemist named Alberto Granado -- set out on an epic journey. They planned to ride north along the spine of the continent all the way to Venezuela.
On the road, the two pals romanced girls, stole and begged for food, partied, bickered, made up and became fast friends for life. They were also exposed to exploited miners, impoverished farmers and doomed outcasts at a leper colony. These shattering experiences transformed two callow young men into idealists and budding revolutionaries.
The movie chronicles that journey, physically, spiritually and socio-politically, stopping short of what happens when they join Castro in Cuba. New York-based playwright Jose Rivera's screenplay and Brazilian Walter Salles' deft direction are clearly sympathetic to their subjects, but the tone is innocent, not pedantic. This is not an overt political tract.
However, some U.S. critics have recoiled in horror at The Motorcycle Diaries, which is a faithful adapation of two books, Guevara's The Motorcycle Diaries and Granado's Traveling With Che Guevara (aka, With Che Through Latin America). They have reacted to Che's now lamentable legacy. They have harshly reviewed Cuba, not the film.
That is missing the point here. Regardless of your politics, the film is a superb transformational drama, shot through with very human moments of levity and pathos. It subtly shows how two men become galvanized by experience and grow into who they are, not what they do. Don't shoot the messenger, even if you don't like what happens later.
As a drama, it is beautifully filmed along parts of the real path of the original trip. And it is wonderfully acted by Mexican star Gael Garcia Bernal (from the hit Y Tu Mama Tambien) and Argentinian newcomer Rodrigo de la Serna (he is taller and thinner than the real Granado, who is still alive at 83 and still short and stout, accounting for the repeated use of the good-natured insult "fatty" in the film).
Bernal is an actor with an inner light and an internal complexity that shines through his eyes. That means he can "be" on screen without needing excess dialogue and exposition to let us in on Che Guevara's humanity, flaws and all. De la Serna shows considerable skill and promise by keeping in lock-step with the more experienced Bernal.
So their on-screen relationship is absolutely believable, crucial to keeping The Motorcycle Diaries on the road to discovery, understanding and enlightenment.
(This film is rated 14-A)