Ernesto "Ch??" Guevara is the ultimate political icon. His face is plastered on thousands of t-shirts worn by college students and that guy who hangs out behind Superfresh.
It comes as a refreshing surprise then that Walter Salles' The Motorcycle Diaries isn't concerned with Guevara's iconic status. Rather, as the voice-over states once at the beginning and again at the end: "This is just a story of two lives running parallel for a while." Perhaps Salles doesn't make it so simple, but the trip did indeed change the course of its hero's life. The story is based on a book Guevara wrote of the same name, in which Ch?? (Gael Garc??a Bernal, Amores Perros) was still a young, upper-middle class Argentinean medical student. Joined by his older biochemist friend Alberto Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna), the hero sets out to explore his own continent, most of which he had only read about in textbooks.
At first, Guevara doesn't seem quite so revolutionary; his lighthearted trip is mostly about the perks of youth, rife with laughs, girls and the like. It isn't until they share a campfire with a poor mining couple that the first spark of discontent with the political situation can be seen in his eyes. Bernal's Guevara, or "Fuser," as he was then called by the jovial Granado, is an incredibly wise and patient youngster, eagerly listening to the stories of the poor workers he meets, and with each story he inches closer to the feeling that something, though he's not quite sure what yet, needs to be done.
It is only when they lose their loyal sputtering motorcycle and abandon their plan to finish their journey by Alberto's 30th birthday, that the movie takes on a more serious tone. Cinematographer Eric Gautier, who fills the frames with breathtaking scenery, uses an interesting technique in which he flashes back to black and white images of the people Ch?? meets, in which they are standing still, to represent the images burned in his memory. It comes off as a little forced, particularly when the same images are repeated at the end of the movie, with heightened implication.
"Fuser" is awfully quiet throughout the film, and barely speaks of his ambitions until, on his birthday, he gives a speech at a leper colony where they have stayed. But the crowd doesn't jump up and start yelling "Viva La Revoluci??n; most seem slightly confused about his sudden outburst.
Roger Ebert quips that Salles' movie is based on "a convenient formula, because it saves you the trouble of dealing with who they became." So what? The movie is, after all, not about his politics, but about the innocent idealism of youth, and in that sense it couldn't have mattered less whether he would have gone on to be Gandhi or Castro.
In one of the more poignant moments of the film, Guevara's father pulls him aside to impart a final word of wisdom upon his son before he sets out on his journey. Instead, in a clever moment of foreshadowing, he hands his son a pistol, and tells him to be on his way.
