Dir. Walter Salles | 2004
A last second change of heart made me rearrange the last two films that I’d be reviewing, having watched one the other day again, it had overtaken my preference, but that’s not meant to say that this film was not good.

A road movie of a completely different variety to that of Sideways, The Motorcycle Diaries claims to be a story “not of heroic tales” but of two lives that ran parallel for a while, those of Ernesto Guevara and Alberto Granada. Though the disclaimer tries to dissuade the feelings of nobility for these two gentlemen, the film does otherwise, which I don’t consider a bad thing. The lives that are running parallel are so superficially different but fundamentally alike that the initial reaction to the contrast between the two characters definitely accentuates the nobility in Che, but you eventually see that both are dedicated and distinguished individuals.

To see the way someone is being inspired, watching what ideas took root and how experiences shape a person is to be inspired oneself. Watching Guevara and Granada experience their country with pride and passionate idealism is inviting as watching their bond grow between them and their country. As an American from the United States, we still call America, America; as an American from Argentina, Guevara still refers to America as America, it is still singularly and solely, his own “America.”

Filmed beautifully in portions of Latin America, the countrysides and the distinct European-ness of Lima, Peru was so striking; the Incan civilization at Machu Pichu and the contrast between Lima and Machu Pichu were remarkable. The music was a driving force throughout the film, but again, the strongest points of the film were the performances, both Bernal and Serna played and very much so looked the part of young men having become privileged with the ability to travel for the sake of traveling, and then taking that and turning it into a responsibility to help those less fortunate.

Filmed documentary style, it’s even possible that some of the “characters” of the film could have been at least one or two generations removed from the real people, if not survivors of occupations. What comes to mind is the woman in Lima teaching them to eat the leaves, the farmers, everyone so indigenous to the population that it feels so real that it’s not as if you’re watching of story of Guevara experiencing this trip, but as if you’re watching the actors and filmmakers experience what Guevara experienced, the diary is simply a guidebook to the events that took place.

What the film doesn’t do is show that Che led an armed revolution in Cuba and was murdered by the CIA for aiding Castro’s rebellion, but part of what made the film so touching was the fact that without knowing these things, or even if you did know them, you still can’t help but feel compassionate towards the cause, the land, the spirit in which the Grenada and Guevara undertook their burdens of unifying and forwarding their country. Won’t make you feel good about Cuba or Communism, but it will make you feel good about loving the proletariat.