"The Motorcycle Diaries" and Che Guevara

The Motorcycle Diaries follows Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Alberto Granado across South America on, at least at first, a motorcycle named “The Mighty One.” The film is heartfelt and funny, but it captures so well how young Ernesto became “Che.” He is portrayed as an honest, helpful, intelligent young medical student who wants to do what is right, even if it’s not socially acceptable.

This is captured most clearly by his actions at the Leper colony in the Amazon. Ernesto is told that although the patients are not really contagious, the nuns who run the colony insist gloves are worn. The first thing that Ernesto does is shake hands with several patients without gloves. He makes instant enemies with the nuns for this, and not going to mass doesn’t help, either. The nuns are a good example of the kind of authority that he begins to detest; they only feed the patients if they attend Sunday Mass.

The feeling of one particular nation isn’t really captured by the film, but that isn’t the point. Che believes in a unified South America – that they are all of one race, and that any social or national lines are merely an illusion.

Gael García Bernal plays an excellent Ernesto, and we really get a feeling for his development as a person. The viewer really begins to love and identify with the two central characters as they learn about their continent and its people. Alberto provides needed comedic relief to Che’s seriousness, but his seriousness is so endearing that you can’t help but want to fight with him.

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Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was born on June 14, 1928 in Rosario, Argentina. Even though he was burdened with Asthma, that didn't stop him from having a raging presence. His personality earned him the nickname "Fuser," a contraction of "El Furibundo" (English: raging) and "Serna," his mother's last name. He grew up in a leftist family, and his medical training allowed him to realize his passion for helping others.

The trip around the continent portrayed in The Motorcycle Diaries was the defining time of Che's life. Seeing the displaced native peoples, the lepers in San Pablo who were denied real human contact, and his later studies of Marxism turned him into a revolutionary. He felt that simply standing by while knowing there was something that could be done would be a crime in itself. The only way, he knew, was revolution.

Che befriended Cuban exiles in Guatemala and Mexico, and after meeting Fidel Castro, he joined the "26th of July movement" in 1955. He was instrumental in helping Castro take over the Cuban government, and he went on to help run the new government. He travelled overseas as a Cuban envoy and spoke on behalf of Socialist and Communist countries.

He was captured in Bolivia, with the help of the CIA, and executed on October 9, 1967.



The Maryland Institute of Art called the above photo of Che Guevara "the most famous photograph in the world and a symbol of the 20th century".