Director: Walter Salles, Arg, 126min
Stars: Gael García Bernal, Rodrigo De la Serna, Mía Maestro
On general release
In 1952, two young Argentinian men set off on a mission to discover the real Latin America. With little money and a rickety old Norton motorcycle shared between them, they travelled for eight months, spending their days clinging to the temperamental bike and their nights getting into scrapes, drinking too much, wooing girls and sleeping wherever they could find free shelter.
What adds interest to this lyrical road movie is the fact that one of these young men was 23-year-old Ernesto Rafael Guevara, now better known as Che. Bernal takes the role of Guevara, playing him as a youth far removed from the dashing revolutionary icon that he became. The nascent political awareness is there, but Guevara is asthmatic, awkward and tactless. This, of course, makes for a more engaging and human biopic than if Salles had chosen to deify his subject.
Of Bernal’s co-stars, two deserve a mention. De la Serna plays Guevara’s travelling companion Alberto Granado, and through sheer force of personality comes close to stealing the film. But it is the spectacular landscapes that are the most important characters in the movie.
Advertisement
Wendy Ide