Short abstract
Directed by Walter Salles
UK release date: 27 August 2004
US release date: 24 September 2004
Rating: ★★★★
Medicine is often a mix of disillusionment and conflicting ideologies, misplaced respect and status, friendship and solidarity. These are values that surprisingly play a central theme in The Motorcycle Diaries, a film about a young Che Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado.
Guevara's iconic status as a revolutionary is immortalised in Alberto Corda's famous photograph, ironically used as a money spinning machine to adorn posters, T shirts, and mugs. But perhaps what is less well known is that Ernesto “Che” Guevara was a doctor, whose political future was shaped by a journey through South America as a medical student with Granado.
Their adventure is detailed in this inspirational film based on Guevara's diary (published as a book of the same name), two years' extensive research, and first hand accounts from Granado.
The journey starts in Buenos Aires in 1952 when Granado (played by Rodrigo de la Serna), a hospital biochemist with a special interest in leprosy, invites Guevara (Gael García Bernal), an upper middle class medical student jaded by college, hospitals, and exams, to travel through South America on his motorcycle, “La Ponderosa II.”
Figure 1.
Road to revolution: the political future of Che Guevara (Gael García Bernel, right) was shaped by a motorcycle journey as a medical student
Credit: IMAGE NET
Initially the pair are keen to exploit their respected status as doctors to secure free accommodation, food, and women. Granado's goal was to see as many different places as possible—and have sex in them.
They travel through the Andes, to Chile, and to the ancient Inca city of Machu Picchu, and then to Lima, Peru, and San Pablo, the largest leper colony in South America, on the banks of the Amazon. Eventually they pass through Colombia, ending up in Venezuela.
However, during the course of their journey their ideologies gradually change. Guevara is confronted with the remains of the Inca culture, displaced communist Chileans, and exploited Peruvian Indians, and the film shows him growing up from the innocent but questioning Ernesto to the future “El Che,” a leader of Latin American people.
Although it forms only a small part of Guevara's diaries, Salles and Granado believe that it was while witnessing the injustices at the San Pablo leper colony that Guevara made his biggest leap of faith. For there, patients were separated both literally and symbolically from doctors, nurses, and nuns by the treacherous Amazon river.
During his birthday celebrations on the doctors' side, Guevara decides that he would rather spend his time with the patients he had become so fond of and—despite his severe asthma and protestations from Granado about the dangers—he jumps in and swims to the other side. His river crossing metaphorically marks a significant change in his identity, the point at which he realises that what people need is not his scientific knowledge as a doctor, but his desire to bring about social change.
Director Walter Salles says that, for him, this was one of the highlights of the film: “The most fascinating part of the journey for me was the one centred in the San Pablo leprosarium. This was where Ernesto and Alberto spent more than three weeks of their journey and entered a reality that was drastically different from anything they found elsewhere. Several people who played lepers in the film had been patients at the actual leper colony, and this granted an additional gravity and density to our work.”
Figure 2.
Credit: IMAGE NET
Throughout the film, the pair are forced to grapple with ethical dilemmas about their role as medics. Guevara treats people for different conditions when asked and, at times, is frustrated by his inability to help. He criticises the work of a leprosy expert, who, because of his status, is used to people praising him and accepting his work unquestioningly. Other particularly poignant moments come when Guevara and Granado refuse to wear rubber gloves when treating people with leprosy because it signifies a hierarchical division between them; they are also refused food by the colony nuns because they don't go to mass.
Director Walter Salles told the BMJ that doctors had much to learn from the story: “The fact that he [Guevara] was a medical student influenced all his life and also his generosity influenced his practice. Granado says that after this journey, he ceases to be just a doctor and becomes a doctor of the people. I believe that Granado is right in his understanding. Granado, a biochemist, himself remained faithful to the profession until the end. He founded the medical school in Santiago de Cuba and fought for the same principles, but on a different front. It's enlightening how these guys were faithful to themselves through their own particular paths.”
However, the film does not overindulge in political posturing or preach, and is frequently punctuated by humour. The ideological development of the pair is only part of the film. Womanising Granado and earnest Guevara are an amusing duo and are as mischievous in their exploits as they are worthy. These self-styled rambling tramps flirt to get food—incurring the wrath of local men—appear in a newspaper as leprosy experts, goad each other, and constantly fall off their motorcycle.
Walter Salles admitted that he was nervous about the reception the film would receive in Cuba, where Guevara fought alongside Fidel Castro in the three-year guerrilla war to overturn the US-backed Batista government in the 1950s. But when the film was shown in Havana, rounds of applause broke out at various points in the film—applause this beautifully shot and acted film deserves.