Review of The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) by Stuart K — 19 Nov 2009
From Brazilian director Walter Salles, who has made Central Station (1998) and Dark Water (2005), comes this brilliant and atmospheric travelogue, based on the diaries of a man who would become Che Guevara, but this was way before all that, back then there was no evidence he would become the legendary guerilla leader, but it was this trip that shaped him.
In January 1952, it has 23-year-old medical student Ernesto "Fuser" Guevara (Gael GarcÃa Bernal) going on a road trip with his older friend and biochemist Alberto Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna), they travel from Buenos Aries on a 1939 Norton 500 motorcycle, christened as 'The Mighty One'.
They travel through Argentina, over the Andes, up the coast of Chile, through the jungles of Peru, where they do volutary work at a leper colony in San Pablo, before finishing in Venezuela that July. It's a buddy road movie, but it has a dark edge, but it was this journey that shaped Ernesto Guevara to become Che, it is a coming-of-age story, and the locales which they travel are stunning.
Bernal and Serna make a good pair, and they carry the film with Salles' quick, on-the-hoof style. Which suits it well.
This review of The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) was written by Stuart K on 19 Nov 2009.
The Motorcycle Diaries has generally received very positive reviews.
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