Metamorphosis of a Young Revolutionary Leader - The Motorcycle Diaries
Thu, 2005-08-11 17:58 — rama_the_drama
“Going on a journey with a map requires following directions - going on a journey without one requires following your heart.” - Tom Krause
There is a moment in everyone’s life where you know, some part of your self has changed irrevocably. For some, it is sudden, like the loss of a family member. For some, it is a slow, mutating process inside you, like that of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, riding on a beat-up Motorcycle with his friend, Alberto Granado,on a 13,250km road-trip across Latin America.
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Ooooh movie review and what
Ooooh movie review and what a cool one too!! yeh this is one of those things that have been sacrificed for something that i am beginning to despise!!
Nice Rama…..i will wtch it someday…
Guys...
Here i was trying to write a review without giving away the important scenes and seems like everyone has jumped to add their bit to spoil it
Guess reviews do make us re-visit esp. if you enjoyed the movie a lot..
SM,
I really don’t know what the “anniversary routine” is about..don’t think it was in the movie.
SSM,
. I thought the “noble-poor-downtrodden” was done without being too melodramatic unlike the desi ones(remember burning hut houses with woman running with a child in her hand sequences ?).
Let the poor guy go buddy..he made a typo
Vivek,
I don’t think Gandhi can be compared to this as it was in a more larger epic scale while this is just one portion of his life.
Ananth,
I did the same after watching the movie..who the hell was he ? why is he so great and why did they have to chop his head and hands in the end!
Nithya,
You just have to be in the right mood for watching such movies.I rented ‘Million Dollar Baby’ 5 times before i finally found the mood to watch it.Saturday/Sunday Afternoon or Weekday Night after 11 is best for such movies.
LOL, rama
.. @ burning-hut-scenes !
yes, i agree - they were not overdone. like i said, maybe i wouldn’t have even noticed if it hadn’t been for the legions of left-leaning movies i’d seen growing up in india.
and oops, sorry for kicking off a spoiler-thread. apologies !
another funny scene.....
is when alberto takes Fuser’s (Che’s)gun and with a single shot brings down a bird (goose?) across a lake….and Che has now got to go swim in the freezing water to get it…
Alberto says - “Freo Fuser?? Freo?? Me nada” or something like that teasing Che that he’s not cold at all, while Che’s freezing his cold asthmatic ass off in the water…
lots of funnies….coolest movie!
one of the best
movies i have watched! loved that movie…there is a scene where the his friend tells Guevara about revolution and Guevara answers that there cant be revolution w/o guns…one can almost sense the transformation in him then itself…..its a dream to do a trip like that…may be thats why i like my roomie’s attitude towards life since he did a trip like all alone in himalays and is next planning one in Eastern India….
After watching that movie i googled and read everything abt Guevara. Not that I liked his revolutionary methods but he seems to have liked what he did
a wonderful road movie
i was totally fascinated by the first half of the movie, but i think the death of “la poderosa” downshifts the movie as well.
maybe i’m desensitized by countless old desi movies, but there’s that tone about the “noble-poor-and-downtrodden” that didn’t sit well with me. and i thought that night-time-swim in the leper colony was a pretty ham-handed metaphoric device. [yeah, yeah, he’s crossed over - we got it :-P]
interesting view, however, on the life of Che, in the days before he became an icon. as a reviewer in some newspaper put it, “even Hendrix had more context”
the actors did a bang-up job. bernal is fast becoming ubiquitous in latin cinema, and deservedly so.
i loved the line when the two buddies are riding into Fuser’s girlfriend’s country estate somewhere in Argentina … when Alberto asks “where are we - fucking Switzerland ??” or something like that.
lotsa nice moments. like when the doctor asks Fuser for his opinion on the book the doctor had been trying to complete - that was totally kickass. and the photography in general - latin america in total widescreen splendour.
and then, a really cool touch - Fuser’s dad, before they set out on the trip, gives him a handgun for emergencies. but we don’t see that gun ever again. that’s possibly the only hint we get about Che’s rather violent, totalitarian post-road-trip life.
I’ve lost count of the
I’ve lost count of the number of recos I got for this movie… And its still pending..
one of my favs!
Motorcycle diaries is a a must watch:) One of my all time favorite movies. If you think Gandhi is a good movie, Diaries is many notches higher. I love the narrative style in which the story is cast, the background imagery is beautiful, and the lead actor gives a fantastic performance. (He also stars in Me tu mama tambien: a movie sold and watched for its skin-show; but in my opinion there too this hero and his friend give a very realistic and artistic potrayal of two friends. Another must watch, though it will shock the weak hearted:)
ROTFL, vivek
@ the “Y tu –> Me tu” .. I’m laughing my head off right now
)
Badly want to see
Hey Rama, thanks for putting this up. This is one movie I badly want to watch. I am not sure if itz available in India yet. And does the movie have their “Anniversary Routine”; that was so hilarious.
Spanish Movies
Hey De-Silva,
You are right! With directors like Pedro Almodovar(All about my Mother) and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu(Amores Perros whose structure was adapted in Yuva by Maniratnam and love-it or hate-it 21-Grams),they are churning out wonderful original movies in spanish with universal appeal and innovative screenplays.It’s really a joy to watch them.Have u seen “Its a very very long Engagement” ? That’s another movie that i enjoyed a lot recently!
Guess i will stick with desi versions of ‘La Poderosa’ lest i am dumped along with the trash by the lady who comes to pick it up at my cubicle!
'La Poderosa!'
Hiya there RTD,
One kick-ass movie….somehow the spanish are able to walk the tightrope of movie making to perfection…no gimmickry, no fantasy, no unnecessary theatrics…just show it as you see it kinda feel..
‘La Poderosa’ - that’s what we called one of our ex-colleagues….coz he was a big fella….only later did he figure out that it was the feminine gender and he wasn’t too happy about it!
Cheers.