jeblog

review: Motorcycle Diaries

I've seen The Motorcycle Diaries, the biopic about Ernesto "Che" Guevara, twice now, so I guess I should review it.

It's not that I don't think it's a good, even wonderful film: I do. I just didn't see any "new media" or "textual" moments in the film. On the second viewing, I did.

First a general review: I really like this movie. I would have to classify it as one of my top three favorite films for 2004 (don't make me list ten: I see a lot of films but I don't think I can remember 10). The acting is terrific, especially Rodrigo de la Serna as Granado. Gael Garcia Bernal, as Che, is no slouch either: he does a great job showing us a young, slightly callow, roman-a-clef (or roman-a-revolutionary) Che.

Though if the film has a weakness its that it may be a little too hagiographic. It was fine for folks who admire Che, as I do, but it might be too much for those who have experienced first-hand the darker sides of revolutions.

And I have to contest one of the things Che says in the film: when he and Granado go to Machu Picchu, he says the revolution without guns is doomed to failure. I think there have been plenty of examples in the past 25 years (since Che died) of the efficacy of nonviolent revolution, such as the Philippines and Haiti in the late 80s, not to mention the end of the Soviet empire (wonder how Che would have felt about that).

The cinematography, especially, is well-done, as is the direction. The writing is pretty good, though some of the situations seem a little bit contrived.

Now my "new media" and "textual" review. Texts are an important part of the story. The larger frame is the diary Ernesto was keeping during his travels. There are quite a few excerpts in the film, as well as shots of Ernesto writing in his diary. There are also excerpts from Ernesto's letters to his mother.

Then there are occasions in which texts play a part in the story, namely when Ernesto's girlfriend breaks up with him by letter, and Ernesto gets the idea of planting in a newspaper in Valparaiso a story that describes he and Granado as famous leper doctors, which buys them a few meals and places to sleep for the night.

There is also one of the few occasions in recent films of a literary review, as Ernesto critiques the novel written by their earnest doctor host in Lima.

The doctor has plenty of books, some of which he recommends to Ernesto and Granado. And can anyone imagine a time in which reading a novel, collectively, at the dining room table, would be possible?

Of course, one of the themes is the movement away from book knowledge to real life experience, such as Ernesto and Granado discover at a leper colony, as they become what they fictionalized for themselves in the newspaper article.

And "new media" moments? I would describe as such the very effective, and moving, effect of having "living snapshots" of people the two travelers meet on the road. The film goes to black-and-white, to simulate photographs, and the models are mostly still, but there is slight movement, so that you know this is a live shot of film, not a photograph. Photographs remediated as film, from which film originally came. They show that a camera can never really capture these life-changing moments, or technology never capture the soul of the people. Which is maybe what I found moving. Or the sense that these were real people, not actors. Anyway, there were some amazing compositions. I especially liked when in one "living snapshot" a gaucho stares into the camera, with a horse behind him. After ten seconds, the horse turns around and faces the camera, breaking the illusion. I liked it anyway.

Finally, there was a sort of archive-textuality moment at the very end when actual photographs taken during the trip show Ernesto and Granado in situations featured in the film. This also broke the illusion of the film world, burning down the cinematic fourth wall. As did the final image of the film, which I also found very moving: showing the real Rodrido de la Serna, an old man, watching the same plane fly off that we saw earlier, when Ernesto left Granado in Venezuala to fly back to Buenos Aires. Breaking the filmic illusion, but also bringing us into the story, into the revolutionary struggle.

Finally, a little political comment. The film is a fine depiction of the education of a revolutionary, as he encounteres the poverty and injustice endemic to South America at that time (and still, for the most part, now), and there's a mention at the end that the CIA was involved in Che's assassination in Bolivia in 1968. But there was not a mention of another key part of Che's political education: when he went to Guatemala to see an indigenous socialist government in power, in the Arbenz presidency (which was much more Rooseveltian than Leninist), and witnessed the CIA's overthrow of an elected government, replacing it with a military dictatorship that continued mroe or less unbroken until 1985.

As much as the film makes North American audiences "feel good," we need to remember that we killed Che. And we continue to kill Che, as well as provide the seedground for other Ches.

Posted by jeb at January 1, 2005 9:35 PM | TrackBack