DVD REVIEW
MOTORCYCLE DIARIES, 2004
I have reviewed a biography and another film of the life and works of the Latin American revolutionary (I think that is how he wanted to see himself rather than simply as an Argentine) Ernesto "Che" Guevara elsewhere in this space and make no bones about my admiration for his revolutionary skill and ardor while also noting my political differences. In a world that, in the year 2007, is filled to the brim with fake ‘heroes’ that today's youth are pushed to emulate Che was the real thing-a man of revolutionary conviction. The film under review, however, is a little difference take on Che’s life from a time before he became a world-known revolutionary fighter and icon. Apparently this film is based on his diaries written while he and another footloose companion were traveling the highways and byways of Latin America on motorcycle, foot, boat, cart or by any other mode of transportation that would move them forward. During that fateful trip middle class professional (doctor) Che has his eyes opened both to the geographic beauty of his continent and also to the grim underside of life for the masses. We, unfortunately, are painfully aware of how those travels ultimately end in the hills of Bolivia pursued by literally all of the security agencies in the Western world.
Does this early life study of Che work? As a member of the Generation of ’68 I am very, very familiar with the wanderlust that drove many of my generation, myself included, to seek salvation and companionship of kindred spirits on the roads of America and elsewhere. We rode those Volkwagen buses to the ground in that pursuit and if that failed we hitchhiked (nobody does that anymore and, unfortunately, nobody should with all the weirdness out there on the mean roads of America these days). Che got the urge to find 'himself' before Kerouac’s Beat Generation classic On the Road and we got it as a result of that work so this struggle against personal alienation has been going on for a while now. However, that physical liberation from parental authority and the norms of bourgesois existence do not in themselves necessarily produce anything except an existential traveler. If one did not know before hand that this film was about Che then, while it was interesting, cinematically beautiful and the interplay between the two travelers was well-acted it could have been about a fair percentage of the children of post-World War II generation.
The missing link is the politics. In a word the search for revolutionary politics. And that is the real problem with the unfolding of the story here. Based on this presentation it is hard to pinpoint what in Che's experiences acted as a catalyst for ‘enlightening’ him beyond some liberal sentimentality about the miseries of existence seen on his travels that would lead to a revolutionary understanding of the need to overthrow the old regimes. Yes, I know that to recruit people to revolution these days we will be dealing with bright, articulate, thoughtful, concerned liberals like the Che in this period but I believe that the makers of this film took a dive on the politics. If they had wanted to honor the memory of Che then they did a disservice to that memory by reducing him to an inoffensive character serviceable to the liberal milieu. If they merely , as I assume, wanted to ride the wave of popularity for a real icon for international youth then I have even greater political differences with their use of Che's legacy.
MOTORCYCLE DIARIES, 2004
I have reviewed a biography and another film of the life and works of the Latin American revolutionary (I think that is how he wanted to see himself rather than simply as an Argentine) Ernesto "Che" Guevara elsewhere in this space and make no bones about my admiration for his revolutionary skill and ardor while also noting my political differences. In a world that, in the year 2007, is filled to the brim with fake ‘heroes’ that today's youth are pushed to emulate Che was the real thing-a man of revolutionary conviction. The film under review, however, is a little difference take on Che’s life from a time before he became a world-known revolutionary fighter and icon. Apparently this film is based on his diaries written while he and another footloose companion were traveling the highways and byways of Latin America on motorcycle, foot, boat, cart or by any other mode of transportation that would move them forward. During that fateful trip middle class professional (doctor) Che has his eyes opened both to the geographic beauty of his continent and also to the grim underside of life for the masses. We, unfortunately, are painfully aware of how those travels ultimately end in the hills of Bolivia pursued by literally all of the security agencies in the Western world.
Does this early life study of Che work? As a member of the Generation of ’68 I am very, very familiar with the wanderlust that drove many of my generation, myself included, to seek salvation and companionship of kindred spirits on the roads of America and elsewhere. We rode those Volkwagen buses to the ground in that pursuit and if that failed we hitchhiked (nobody does that anymore and, unfortunately, nobody should with all the weirdness out there on the mean roads of America these days). Che got the urge to find 'himself' before Kerouac’s Beat Generation classic On the Road and we got it as a result of that work so this struggle against personal alienation has been going on for a while now. However, that physical liberation from parental authority and the norms of bourgesois existence do not in themselves necessarily produce anything except an existential traveler. If one did not know before hand that this film was about Che then, while it was interesting, cinematically beautiful and the interplay between the two travelers was well-acted it could have been about a fair percentage of the children of post-World War II generation.
The missing link is the politics. In a word the search for revolutionary politics. And that is the real problem with the unfolding of the story here. Based on this presentation it is hard to pinpoint what in Che's experiences acted as a catalyst for ‘enlightening’ him beyond some liberal sentimentality about the miseries of existence seen on his travels that would lead to a revolutionary understanding of the need to overthrow the old regimes. Yes, I know that to recruit people to revolution these days we will be dealing with bright, articulate, thoughtful, concerned liberals like the Che in this period but I believe that the makers of this film took a dive on the politics. If they had wanted to honor the memory of Che then they did a disservice to that memory by reducing him to an inoffensive character serviceable to the liberal milieu. If they merely , as I assume, wanted to ride the wave of popularity for a real icon for international youth then I have even greater political differences with their use of Che's legacy.
