The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
(Carnets de Voyage/Diarios de motocicleta)
Country: US/GB/FR
Technical: col 126m
Director: Walter Salles
Cast: Gael García Bernal, Rodrigo de la Serna, Mía Maestro
Synopsis:
Latin America, the 1950s: the young medical student later to be known as Che Guevara, and his bio-chemist friend, embark on a 1930s motorcycle from Buenos Aires on a 10,000km trek to Venezuela. Their mission: to visit a leper colony in Perú and, incidentally, to ascertain the state of the continent's political health.
Review:
The motorcyle does not make it past Chile, so the title is misleading, for thereafter the film becomes less picaresque travelogue and a more serious and involved engagement with the human geography of the continent, not least the lot of the indigenous peoples. Rewarding in both its guises, the film is the kind of happy accident that occurs when inspiration (the subject is ripe for filming) meets talented actors and director and a producer with lots of money (Redford). The shooting style is removed from that of Behind the Sun, in that there is less striving for visual effect and more use of jump-cuts and other 'reportage'-like mannerisms, such as the black-and-white, Godfrey Reggio-style frontal shots of the film's non-professional cast. In this it resembles more Salles's first great success, Central Station.
(Carnets de Voyage/Diarios de motocicleta)
Country: US/GB/FR
Technical: col 126m
Director: Walter Salles
Cast: Gael García Bernal, Rodrigo de la Serna, Mía Maestro
Synopsis:
Latin America, the 1950s: the young medical student later to be known as Che Guevara, and his bio-chemist friend, embark on a 1930s motorcycle from Buenos Aires on a 10,000km trek to Venezuela. Their mission: to visit a leper colony in Perú and, incidentally, to ascertain the state of the continent's political health.
Review:
The motorcyle does not make it past Chile, so the title is misleading, for thereafter the film becomes less picaresque travelogue and a more serious and involved engagement with the human geography of the continent, not least the lot of the indigenous peoples. Rewarding in both its guises, the film is the kind of happy accident that occurs when inspiration (the subject is ripe for filming) meets talented actors and director and a producer with lots of money (Redford). The shooting style is removed from that of Behind the Sun, in that there is less striving for visual effect and more use of jump-cuts and other 'reportage'-like mannerisms, such as the black-and-white, Godfrey Reggio-style frontal shots of the film's non-professional cast. In this it resembles more Salles's first great success, Central Station.
(Carnets de Voyage/Diarios de motocicleta)
Country: US/GB/FR
Technical: col 126m
Director: Walter Salles
Cast: Gael García Bernal, Rodrigo de la Serna, Mía Maestro
Synopsis:
Latin America, the 1950s: the young medical student later to be known as Che Guevara, and his bio-chemist friend, embark on a 1930s motorcycle from Buenos Aires on a 10,000km trek to Venezuela. Their mission: to visit a leper colony in Perú and, incidentally, to ascertain the state of the continent's political health.
Review:
The motorcyle does not make it past Chile, so the title is misleading, for thereafter the film becomes less picaresque travelogue and a more serious and involved engagement with the human geography of the continent, not least the lot of the indigenous peoples. Rewarding in both its guises, the film is the kind of happy accident that occurs when inspiration (the subject is ripe for filming) meets talented actors and director and a producer with lots of money (Redford). The shooting style is removed from that of Behind the Sun, in that there is less striving for visual effect and more use of jump-cuts and other 'reportage'-like mannerisms, such as the black-and-white, Godfrey Reggio-style frontal shots of the film's non-professional cast. In this it resembles more Salles's first great success, Central Station.