The Motorcycle Diaries (Widescreen Edition) (2004) review on movielords.com

Now Reading: The Motorcycle Diaries (Widescreen Edition) (2004)

Today is May 16, 2008

The Motorcycle Diaries (Widescreen Edition) (2004)

Road Trip ... Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?

OK. It's a good movie. Worth seeing. The photography is fantastic and the transition between affluent fun to social conscience is handled nicely and nearly seamlessly.

Americans, North Americans, probably make the better films. This is not necessarily a good thing. It's just the way it is. We have more highly trained actors, more equipment, more advanced technology and let's face it, more money. So seeing the 'best foreign film(s) of the year' has an element of 'how ARE the Joneses doing?'

And in that regard, this film comes out well. $25.00 date night film? Possibly not. Without the adulation of a lot of cleavage and somber men at the Oscars? Possibly not.

Garcia Bernal does a great job as Ernesto Guevara, and although less sexy or sensual I thought Rodrigo de la Serna was the better actor as Che's compatriot travelling in South America on the last fling before responsibility, de la Serna as a biochemist and Che in medicine.

Their trip through South America in 1952 does sow the (at least) recognition of social injustice and the frequent and painful victory of money and greed over humanity. It seems tasteless to point out that historically this concept, inhumanity to their fellows by the ruling class, is about 6000 years old. Ain't nothing new here, Che.

The problem that arises for us as viewers (you still need viewers to make it successful unless you're into that "tree falling" philosophy) is that this tends to canonize Che. If so, the quality of the movie should be sufficient to withstand the fact that a lot of people aren't going to sit around and accept that view. They're not going to buy into it.

The movie does seem to encourage that and giving it credit, witstand it. Perhaps this is not so for those that see Che as a romantic Don Quixote reflected in their reaction to those who would point out that Che became a violent revolutionary, involved in the imprisonment of thousands and the death of at least hundreds. This is part of his life, or the life that he embraced, and critics need to feel a willingness to point that out in the absence of villification. It is a valid point.

One reviwer mentions that Che had a choice too, he could have become Ghandi. He chose Trotsky. That's his decision and it runs afoul of what we have formulated as human social justice for the above mentioned 6000 years.

If you make a movie about Mother Teresa, you may not like her because she's a woman. You may not like her because she's a Christian. But you can't say she believes in the violent overthrow of the governmemt. With Che, it's a fair shot.

Another fair point for us, the Norte Americanos, is that we are sometimes bigoted in our views. And the heavy handedness in which we pool all of South America, Central America, Mexico and Puerto Rico into the "latino" umbrella, has painful recollections of life in the United States pre-Civil Rights Act of 1964, which in and of itself had it's own shortcomings. And we did that with this competent film as well. Perhaps serving up Antonio Banderas and Carlos Santana at the Oscars as "latinos" was another unintended racial slight. Yet Jorge Drexler coming up on stage to accept the award for Best Music and not making a tedious political speech (it's the Oscars, not the Party's National Convention) but rather singing his song was pretty good, wasn't it? 4 stars. Larry Scantlebury

All news on this site are owned and copyrighted to their respective publishers. this is a non commercial website.