The Motorcycle Diaries

Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal and Rodrigo de la Serna
Directed by: Walter Salles
Soundtrack Review

Bluntly speaking? The Motorcycle Diaries treats you to a visual cornucopia of South America as a casual tale of great importance is shared.

The caliber of acting, the luscious scenery and the chemistry of the production radiates within an almost watercolor memory. Diaries is genuinely enthralling, though at times a tad slow, as you get a very personal glimpse into Ernesto "Che" Guevara (a leader of the Cuban revolution) 's beginning, formation and budding larger-than-life persona.

Story goes…it's 1952 in Argentina. A young man, Ernesto (Gael Garcia Bernal) and his close friend, Alberto (Rodrigo de la Serna) are facing the stark reality of maturing. Each has a semi-set professional career ahead of them and life promises to be relatively bump free.

Rather than just give in, get married and sally up to the saddle of life among the debutantes they decide to explore their continent, South America - over 8000 miles. They will make the journey aboard Alberto's spitfire classic 1939 Norton 500 dubbed, "La Poderosa." She's a mechanical heap, but filled with spirit, and destined to bring the men, Ernesto in particular, to their destinies; "La Poderosa" will help shape their souls by carrying them upon a road filled with humanity and unguarded truths.

The film, regardless of its lead's eventual political importance, is on its most rudimentary level, a delicious "buddy" film.

The travels proved to be much more than buddies ripping loose on the open road had expected. It opened their upper-middle class eyes to the struggle others faced. Ernesto who would become Fidel Castro's right hand man and the man named "Che" (that silk-screened image of the bearded Billy Zane looking man that now adorns all the wouldbewannabe revolutionaries tee shirts and car bumpers in the hipper parts of the city), believed these eight months spent with the people through Chile, the Amazon, Peru, changed him into the man he would become. Yes, it's an important film.

The endless beauty cinematographer Eric Gautier captures as we travel along with Ernesto and Alberto helps accent the conflicting underbelly of class distinctions. Often subdued amongst the breathtaking scenery. The land's people while trying to keep their spirits seem unwavering amid the trials facing them.

Gael Garcia Bernal is one of the finest imports since Javier Bardem or Clive Owen. A smoldering slice of churro mansteak with bubbling pico de talent, this young man is a helluva force. He morphs before your very eyes into Che the leader - and towards the end of the film you get tiny goosebumps with the realization this "kid" is to be a historical legend.

Rodrigo de la Serna, who plays Alberto Ernesto's life-long close friend, volleys between the yuck-yuck clown and a drama that'll make you giddy with its calm delivery.

The Motorcycle Diaries is an arthouse "road trip" film that is actually based on the journal books eventually penned by both men around this fated trip. The film does slow down - to a halt - when the two reach the Leper colony towards the end of their historic journey. Of course director Walter Salles wanted us all to understand this part of the trip had the final impact upon the young Che brain…. yeah yeah we got that…it just seemed to go on and on an on. But Leper faux pas aside, the film's a must see, not just for the behind-the-scenes-look at an expiring revolutionary leader, but for its sincere beauty and flow. Till the leper colony bit - did I mention that?

Snack recommendation: Argentinean beef roasted over a community pit