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The Motorcycle Diaries directed by Walter
Salles. Focus Films, 2004, 126 minutes.
Ernesto Goes to Peru by Jo Ann Skousen
"Life is just school, vacation, school, vacation, and
then it's work, work, work till you die."
— C. S. Lewis
| | Jo Ann
Skousen is a writer and critic who lives in New York.
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Somewhere between school and work, American students often take one last
unfettered vacation, comprising several weeks of backpacking through Europe,
sleeping in youth hostels, eating little, and experiencing much, before returning
to their middle-class roots and full-time careers. In the summer of 1952, Ernesto
Guevara de la Serna (Gael Garcia Bernal), a young Argentine medical student, set
off on a similar adventure around South America with his friend, biochemist
Alberto Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna), before the two were scheduled to begin
their duties as doctor and pharmacist in a leper colony in Peru. "The Motorcycle
Diaries" is a recreation of that journey, based on the diaries and letters the
two wrote during the trip.
Although the story is rather slow moving, as a film about a road trip, it's a
fine piece. The filming is deliberately amateurish, almost like a home movie at
times, reflecting the ramshackle nature of their trip: no money, no food, and
before long, no bike. Dusty villages and dustier townspeople are portrayed with a
straightforward honesty, particularly in the Peruvian leper colony where the two
find work. The most majestic part of the travelogue is their arrival in Machu
Picchu, where they lounge within the walls of the fabled city virtually alone,
their reward for the lung-wrenching mountain climb. This is a road trip at its
finest. |
| The most majestic part of
the travelogue is their arrival in Machu Picchu, where they lounge within the
walls of the fabled city virtually alone. |
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Ultimately, of course, this is not a film about a summer vacation, but about
the birth of a revolutionary. Loading their motorcycle (dubbed with the hopeful
but woefully inaccurate moniker "The Mighty One") like a pack mule, Ernesto and
Alberto set out on a journey toward manhood and enlightenment. The motorcycle
crashes frequently, spilling their possessions along the road until they have
only the goods they can carry on their backs. This seems to symbolize Ernesto's
divesting himself of his middle-class goals and values and even his mother's
name; by the end of the journey, he has become simply "Che" Guevara (a name
teasingly applied to him by a Chilean girl making fun of his Argentine accent).
Moved by the poverty and injustice he observes throughout South America, and
perhaps motivated even more by his upper-class girlfriend's rejection, he leaves
the leper colony to fight for a "United America," eventually becoming a leader of
the revolutions in Cuba and Bolivia, where he would be assassinated "with the
approval of the CIA."
| Che's politics are kept
to a merciful minimum, seen only through the innocent eyes of an idealist
awakened to the problem, before he has hit upon his brutal solution.
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Every screening at the theater I attended was sold out opening weekend, even
in the early afternoon. The closing credits were greeted with cathartic applause
for Che's heroic martyrdom in bringing justice to Latin America. Ironically, this
applause came from upscale Manhattanites — the sort of people Che fought to
overthrow. Perhaps their enthusiasm came from the fact that we only saw the
embryonic Che — the compassionate young doctor removing his rubber gloves to
show the lepers he was their equal; the faithful young lover jilted by his
wealthy girlfriend; the kind young man who gives his only dollars to a poor
communist family. But I was nonplussed by the applause. Is it any more "just" to
wrest lands and homes from the wealthy than it is to take them from the poor?
Let's compare the beauty and vibrancy of pre-Che Havana with the poverty and
erosion of modern Havana to judge the effectiveness of Che's revolution. As
Winston Churchill once said, "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal
sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of
miseries." I'll take the injustice of capitalism over the justice of socialism
any time, knowing that I have the opportunity to increase my share of the
blessings by my own work and innovation. I will never favor bringing someone down
to my level, just to keep us equal.
Nevertheless, "The Motorcycle Diaries" is a movie worth seeing, if only to
view the mystical peak of Machu Picchu rising above the grandeur of the Quechuas'
ruined city, before cruise-ship tourism made the fabled mountain hideaway as
accessible as a theme park. Che's politics are kept to a merciful minimum; we
observe the elitist snobbery of his girlfriend's family and the desperate plight
of the poor displaced workers, but it is through the young and innocent eyes of
an idealist awakened to the problem, before he has hit upon his brutal solution.
It is also an opportunity to muse on how many lives might be different today if
Che Guevara had decided to remain in Peru, quietly and humbly caring for the
lepers he was trained to heal, instead of leading a murderous revolution in
foreign lands.
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