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The new film from director Walter Salles, The Motorcycle Diaries, is that rare bio-pic I like a lot. Based on a six-month period in the life of Che Guevara, it chronicles a journey he took after graduating from medical school. In the movie, he and his best friend Alberto motorcycle through Argentina, Chile, and Peru, where their middle-class assumptions are tested by the people they meet and the situations they encounter. It's a poetic tale of political awakening, and yet many major critics have lambasted the film, calling it "tedious" (Ebert), "insipid" (Village Voice) and "inadequate" (Boston Globe). Even those who appreciate the movie have declared it a minor work and accused it of bad faith for its gorgeous landscape shots of South America. So, why does a film that could make my Top 10 for the year have so many other critics shaking their heads?

Part of the problem is Che himself and the political baggage we bring to this leftist icon. For many on the left, Che is one of the few unsullied examples of 20th-century revolutionary politics. While Castro, Mao, and others undermined their reputation by their actions in power, Che stayed true to the revolutionary cause and remains an inspiration for some audiences 37 years after his death. Any film that minimizes Che's fiery politics (as The Motorcycle Diaries admittedly does) risks offending this audience.

On the other hand, those on the right continue to see Che as a terrorist, a man whose veneration by the left offends every value they hold dear. They point to his fomenting of armed rebellion in Africa and Latin America as a dangerous predecessor of contemporary terrorism. And his primary role in the Cuban revolution continues to rankle certain parties even to this day. So any film that paints Che in a positive, humanist light (as The Motorcycle Diaries admittedly does) is seen by this audience as leftist lies and propaganda.

For those of us who aren't already committed to a particular view of Che Guevara, though, The Motorcycle Diaries is engrossing and thought-provoking. Gael Garcia Bernal, who burst onto the radar with Y Tu Mama Tambien, plays Che as a thoughtful 23-year-old man but as one who sets off on his first long trip away from home more interested in discovering himself and women than any kind of political consciousness. His first stop is at his girlfriend's, whose upper-class parents have no use for this middle-class doctor, but his hopes of marriage or sex don't get any farther than a make-out session in the back of her car. So he sets off with his best friend Alberto (Rodrigo De la Serna). Their not-so-trusty motorcycle sputters in the snows of Chile, and they eventually abandon it after they're run out of a small town (Che has taken a liking to another man's wife).

Things begin to change for Guevara (and the movie) in a haunting night-time scene in the Chilean desert. Che and Alberto come across a weather-beaten couple desperately searching for work. They ask the young men why they're traveling. Che's response--"we travel just to travel"--immediately strikes Che as inadequate, even callous. Later in the Peruvian city of Cuzco, he meets a group of indigenous women and hears how they've been displaced off their land. His comfortable upbringing seems somehow inadequate in the face of this suffering. Compelled to do something besides just traveling, Che and Alberto volunteer to work with lepers in a hospital. Their enthusiasm leads to a post at a leper colony deep in the Amazon jungle, which provides the moral anchor of the film.

One of the many great things about the script for The Motorcycle Diaries (written by Jose Rivera, from the book by Che Guevara and Alberto Granado) is how it naturally moves from a buddy/road-trip movie to a film about ethics and politics. It eases us into its themes of social justice and nascent revolution. For some, this slow development is a fault. I guess they were hoping the film would beat its audience over the head, would provoke us by castigating our own bourgeois tastes. But I find this subtle approach to be much more powerful, and the film's politics are unmistakable, especially in the movie's denouement. As Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times perceptibly wrote, "transformation is no less convincing for being a gradual process that comes on its subjects all unawares." He's referring to Che and Alberto, but he could just as easily be talking about us in the audience.

Many of the film's detractors have also complained about its gorgeous cinematography, as if a movie that focuses on suffering is somehow more truthful if it looks ugly. This odd asceticism is not only misguided, it misses one of Salles's most important themes--the development of a Latin American consciousness. Che and Alberto set out "to explore a continent we had only read about," and you can sense Salles hoping to do the same, to instill in his global audience a love for the place he calls home. With so many movies like City of God and Bus 174 focusing on the horrible conditions in South America, Salles also reminds us of what a beautiful continent it is. This doesn't minimize the terrible social conditions that exist, but it does remind us of why peace and justice are worth fighting for.

But even if you don't buy into the film's political angle, you'll still appreciate the strong acting from Bernal and De la Serna. They have an easy chemistry, and De la Serna sparkles in his film debut. His sneaky smile is full of charm, and he plays his second-fiddle role to perfection. And the focus on just a small part of Che's life avoids the usual trap of bio-pics (the predictable narrative arc) and instead opens up an entire world.  

J. Robert Parks   10/11/2004