Review by © Jane Freebury
In the middle of last century, two young Argentinians set out on a journey of discovery to explore the South American continent. It was a road trip on which they turned their back on privilege, a gesture that many young people in subsequent generations would emulate as they embraced the politics of the left and the needs of the third world.
Medical student Ernesto (‘Che’) Guevara de la Serna was only 23, and his traveling companion, biochemist Alberto Grenado nearly 30, both shared a restlessness and a love of the open road. It wasn’t the first time Ernesto had taken to the road. And the two young men also had a common professional interest in the treatment of leprosy.
Their motorcycle itself didn’t last the distance, but it carried them through Patagonia, across the Andes and past the vistas of Machu Picchu. The glorious, rolling landscapes are a gift to this journey of discovery, inspiring in themselves and inviting a reading beyond the personal to the general.
During the early stages of the trip the two men bicker like a mismatched married couple. Ernesto/Che, the asthmatic medical student, is honest to a fault, and Gael Garcia Bernal, rising Latino star who we saw in Y Tu Mama Tambien and Amores Perros, makes him a rather vulnerable, brooding, but winning character. Out for a good time but not at the expense of his Hippocratic oath, with his garrulous, party-animal friend Alberto.
Once the men begin to hitch rides and travel on foot they join the world of the dispossessed of Chile and Peru, and the trip becomes a turning point in their lives.
One enthusiastic critic hailed the book of Che Guevara’s writings on which this film is based as Das Kapital meets Easy Rider. However, the film relates the early stirrings of political consciousness and it only covers around eight months of Che Guevara’s life.
This period was clearly a defining moment that gave birth to Che’s view that the continent of South America, from Mexico to the Magellan Straits, was home to ‘a single mestizo race’. In three short years he would be on his way to meet Fidel Castro.
There are some terrific road trip movies that map a turning point in political consciousness — Thelma and Louise, Phil Noyce’s Backroads and Wim Wenders’ Kings of the Road are outstanding examples. This fabulous journey by Walter Salles, the Brazilian director who made Central Station, is another absolutely stirring stunner.
4.5 stars