The Motorcycle Diaries

In 1952 the medical student Ernesto Guevara and the biochemist Alberto Granado set out to cross South America on an old motorcycle, covering more than 14,000 kilometres in roughly four and a half months. The film follows that trip and shows not a revolutionary but a man still learning. Gael García Bernal prepared for six months, read the biographies and spoke to Granado directly. He had already played Che in a 2002 miniseries. The strongest section is the San Pablo leper colony in Peru. By Bernal's account, 85 percent of the people with leprosy in the film actually had it, and some had been there during the 1952 visit. The swim across the Amazon was shot repeatedly across three consecutive nights. The real Alberto Granado worked as an adviser on the production and appears briefly at the end. Jorge Drexler's Al otro lado del río won Best Original Song, the film's only Oscar. José Rivera was nominated for Adapted Screenplay. Who it is for: viewers drawn to road films and to how political consciousness forms. Who it is not for: anyone wanting an accounting of what Guevara did later. The film stops before that and does not engage the argument.