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The Motorcycle Diaries Movie Review

The Motorcycle Diaries is a 2004 biographical road film directed by Walter Salles and starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Rodrigo de la Serna. It’s a good-looking, but overrated movie.

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“How is it possible to feel nostalgia for a world I never knew?“

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Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, popularly known as Che, along with his friend Alberto Granado, decides to take a road trip across South America. His experiences on the journey transform him. This is one of those movies that appeal to the widest masses possible, but not to me unfortunately. I found it to be too populist in its approach at storytelling. It paints its themes and characters with the broadest strokes possible, lacking the nuance that this material demanded.

Yes, this movie is set before Ernesto became Che, a famous Marxist revolutionary, so the story itself was never going to be overtly political. And that is fine, but the problem here was that the movie not only conveniently brushed aside politics, but it also failed to properly deal with class issues in South America. How the peasants were depicted here was overly one-note with the movie also lacking in strong, meaningful dialogue.

The playful exchange between these two friends was excellent and their scenes together made the film quite charming and endearing. Gael Garcia Bernal was pretty good in the main role, but I wouldn’t say that he was perfectly cast as a more charismatic actor would have suited the figure better. Rodrigo de la Serna was actually much more memorable here as his Alberto is unforgettable and very likable.

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The Motorcycle Diaries failed to properly develop these two characters, which was an issue for a longer road trip movie. The various people that they meet along the way are also underutilized and I couldn’t help but feel bad for all of them as these two would casually use them for food and shelter without giving them much else in return.

Where the film excels at is in its audio-visuals. Al otro lado del rio ended up winning an Oscar and the song is quite good. The score overall is terrific. But it is the cinematography that was the real star here. The film served as a wonderful tourism advert for the entire continent of South America with so many gorgeous shots of the many different ecosystems that this grandiose continent contains.

The movie is also quite engaging and definitely cozy, but I wished that it had less of those overly manipulative and mainstream sequences (the river swimming one being the prime example) that were just meant to arouse viewers emotionally. It lacked the sophistication that this type of story needed while consistently reminding me that this story should have remained in its original literary form as it’s not best suited for the cinematic medium.

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