The Motorcycle Diaries

Summary: This movie is based on the 1952 trek that is recorded in memoirs by a young Che Guevara undertaken with his friend Alberto Granado. They eventually start from Argentina, travel through Chile, Peru, Columbia and separate as Granado stays behind in Venezuela and Che continues his journey. It provides insights into the development of a young Guevara and the different paths of two young men in a very romantic light.

Review: The movie was well filmed, had a captivating storyline, and had tons of big ideas. I also am very fond of the Latina women they encounter such as Mia Maestro. The movie had a nice mix of lighter moments of courting various women while the seriousness of encountering actual migrant workers in mines who couldn't understand why they traveled. Gael Garcia Bernal as Che and Rodrigo de la Serna as Alberto Granado had great chemistry and played the role of friends who disagreed at times, but were brothers very well. I really enjoyed it and it just proves my previous post's point of polarized views when it comes to foreign films. I was rationalizing as I suspected in the previous post because I knew next to nothing about Che besides the fact he was a Communist revolutionary who the CIA hated and young American youths today idealize for perhaps the wrong reasons.

Further Question/Theme/Philosophy: Travel/young men getting a goal/equality/ideals
It's very interesting to note that Alberto Granado went on to do many great things in becoming a professor of biochemistry and in the development of Cuba's competent doctors while Che died at age 39. Granado recently passed in March and it's a curious thing did it all really matter in the end? Another footnote should be that the Anaconda Copper Mining Company that they encounter in Chile merged with Alantic Richfield Company (ARCO) in 1977. Then in 2000, BP finalizes a deal to buy out ARCO for 30 billion dollars.

Power Rating (Out of 5): 5 I couldn't really find any faults with the movie and enjoyed the themes greatly. The cast seemed fit and the specific scenes at places such as a debate at Machu Pichu or the symbolic swimming across a river that divided the leper colony were beautifully shot. It was well made and inspiring enough to make me question my own young life's choices.

Favorite Quotes:
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna: How is it possible that i feel nostalgia for a world I never knew. How do you explain that a civilization capable of building this is wiped out to build...

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna: What do we leave behind when we cross each frontier? Each moment seems split in two; melancholy for what was left behind and the excitement of entering a new land.

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna: This isn't a tale of heroic feats. It's about two lives running parallel for a while, with common aspirations and similar dreams.

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna: Wandering around our America has changed me more than I thought. I am not me any more. At least I'm not the same me I was.

Miner's Wife: Are you two looking for work?
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna: No, we aren't looking for work.
Miner's Wife: No?... Then why are you traveling?
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna: We travel just to travel.
Miner's Wife: Bless you... Blessed be your travels.

Leper from San Pablo: Why did you want to be a doctor?
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna: I wanted to be useful, somehow.
Leper from San Pablo: You're wasting your time.
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna: Why?
Leper from San Pablo: Life is pain.

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna: The Incas had a high knowledge of astronomy, medicine,math, among others.
But the Spanish invaders had powder
How would America be today if things had been different?

Alberto Granado: Fuser, look what i think. I should marry with an Inca descendantand found an indigenous party, We encourage everyone to vote Reactivate Tupac Amaru's revolution,the indoamerican revolution, Fuser, What do you think?
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna: A revolution without gunshots?You are crazy Mial.