cbsreview #2: The Motorcycle Diaries
(to lp, for sharing the value of empiricism;
to jet david, for revealing the secret burden of silence)

The words of German poet Nelly Sachs seemed to reverberate in my inner ear halfway through this movie: Instead of a homeland I hold the metamorphoses of the world.

Certain signs dispute the theory of coincidences. It was halfway through the movie when the lead character displays his moment of epiphany: on a chance encounter with a poor and oppressed Communist couple working in a copper mine in Chile, he gives them not just his attention but money as well, all of $13.00 in his pocket originally reserved for something else.

In movie as in literature, epiphany works 2-ways: For the medium, it is when the lead character encounters the reality of experience; for the watcher/reader, it is when the theme of the story reveals its exact focus. In The Motorcycle Diaires, the epiphany worked not only 2-ways but that these two ways occured at the same time. To this watcher, the movie's theme was illuminated by that act of generosity by the lead character - the virtue of looking beyond his indulgence, sharing beyond his means, envisioning beyond his years - occuring halfway through the movie.

Prior to TMD, my only knowledge of Che Guevarra was that he joined Fidel Castro in his pursuit of a Cuban Revolution and that he was killed by soldiers in the jungles of Bolivia. And prior to TMD and the scant knowledge I had of him, my connection to him was only via a sticker of his iconic face with beard and beret on the cover of my favorite gradeschool book, Short Stories On Parade.

Connection, like love, is lovelier the second time around. Halfway through the movie, I had my epiphany, my moment of illumination, not only of the TMD's exact moment of thematic focus - but more importantly, the larger truth of Che Guevarra's icon.

The larger truth is here, as TMD is fact, culled from diaries recently discovered and it tells us many interesting things about the diarist such as these: that his nickname Che was probably media-imposed, "che" being merely a common expression among Argentinians ; that this Argentinian fully-named Ernesto Guevarra dela Serna's true nickname was Fusar; that he came from a wealthy family; and, that he was close to getting his degree in medicine when he and bestfriend Alberto Granado (a biochemist, currently still alive) decided to see and experience South America on a dilapidated Norton 400 motorcycle.

The movie tells us that Che Guevarra in his young adulthood was sui generis, a class of his own, a dilettante with a mission. When he and his friend decided to travel from Argentina to Chile to Peru to Colombia to Venezuela within the scary confines of a motorcycle, we knew at once that
we, you and I, can never be like him - a combination of daring and caring, boldness and coolness.

There are two things in the movie, aside from the acting of Gael Garcia Bernal (as Guevarra) and Rodrigo dela Cerna (as Granado), that brings it to the level of great - South America itself, a fantastic geography never before emphasized in a full-length film, and its soundtrack (which I cannot wait to acquire).

See this movie for yourself and learn what real journey is all about, the noblest of which, like what Guevarra himself experienced (especially at the leper colony), ironically had the shortest route of all: it starts from the head and ends in the heart.

The Motorcycle Diaries. Just like Sachs. Just like lp. Just like jd.

5 stars.