Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I’m certainly not the first person to notice this, but it seems to be true that this fall is particularly dense with biographical films. It’s also worth noting that many of these films appear determined to sidestep the typical dramatic pitfalls of the biopic. It’s an admirable goal. So often, when someone tries to encapsulate someone else’s life story into a two-hour time slot, what results is a sort of wax museum/greatest hits package, a surface look at the events that we know without any greater illumination added. Walter Salles neatly avoided that trap with his new film THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES, which just opened in limited release, based on two separate books. One was THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES by Ernesto Che Guevara, and the other was TRAVELLING WITH CHE GUEVARA, by Alberto Granada. I’ve never read either, so all I can judge is the film, and it’s a quiet gem, a beautifully made coming-of-age story that wisely focuses on one chapter in the controversial life of Guevara. This isn’t a political movie, but it does illustrate the way someone’s political awakening takes place. At the start of the film, Ernesto’s in his early 20s, a medical student with less than a year of school left. Alberto is a biochemist, a stone’s throw from his 30th birthday, and he’s got a plan for how he wants to celebrate: he wants to take a road trip. “You just want to get laid in every country in South America,” says Ernesto.
”More like every town,” is Alberto’s response. There’s a great rapport between the two, and credit must be given to Gael Garcia Bernal and Rodrigo de la Serna, who both do excellent work in the film. Bernal’s got a little trouble with his accent, but it’s the sort of thing you won’t notice unless you know the difference between the way Mexicans speak Spanish and the way it’s spoken in Argentina. What’s more important is the way Bernal plays Guevara’s evolution over the course of the trip, and he nails it. When he leaves Buenos Aires, eh’s a well-educated kid from an upper middle-class family, sheltered, athletic but asthmatic. When Alberto offers him the chance to join him on the trip, he can’t resist. There’s an irresistible charm to Alberto the way de la Serna plays him. He’s like a Latin American Groucho Marx, slouching and leering his way across the continent. He’s completely free-spirited, and it’s obvious that Ernesto wants to be like him.
Jose Rivera’s screenplay is deceptively simple. Two quick scenes to show Alberto and Ernesto at home, and then they hop onboard Alberto’s 1939 Norton 500 motorcycle, which they call “La Ponderosa” or “The Mighty One.” It’s not exactly a cutting-edge piece of machinery, and much of the comedy in the first half of the film comes from how the bike either performs or doesn’t. They stop briefly so Ernesto can see his girlfriend, Chichina Ferreyra (Mia Maestro, who ALIAS fans will recognize as The Passenger from Season Three) one last time. What follows over the next eight months and 8,000 miles is episodic in nature, but this isn’t meant to be a plot-driven film. They got across Patagonia, through the Andes, over the Atacama Desert, into the Amazon Basin, up Machu Picchu, and then finally to the San Pablo leper colony near Iquitos, Peru. Rivera and Salles have been careful not to make this a film about the man that Ernesto would eventually become. It’s not overladen with signs of the future of Che. Instead, the film focuses on this clear-eyed kid and his reaction to the people he encounters. Little by little, his conscience is prodded and poke, and Bernal portrays the gradual awakening as a series of small moments instead of one sudden thunderbolt. He never jumps up on a table to rant about revolution. Instead, he struggles to figure out how to express the enormous compassion that threatens to overwhelm him as he encounters homeless miners, riverboat prostitutes, the remains of Incan culture, and the lepers of San Pedro. Through the whole journey, Alberto’s right there by his side to keep things light and occasionally profane, to remind Ernesto about the joys of life, and the way these friends balance each other is what keeps us engaged as an audience.
Eric Gautier’s done strong work as a cinematographer in France. I’m especially fond of his work on INTIMACY. He’s never had a more spectacular canvass to paint on than he does here, though, and he rises to the occasion. I’m going to South America for the first time in the spring, and this movie’s lush imagery has only stoked my anticipation even further. The film’s beautifully edited, too, with real grace and wit. Between this and last year’s CITY OF GOD, I’d say Daniel Rezende is one of the best cutters working right now in any country. Special mention must also be made of the score by Gustavo Santaolalla, who also scored AMORES PERROS and 21 GRAMS. This music is gorgeous and haunting, dependent largely on a solo guitar, and it feels like he found the acoustic equivalent to the continent’s soul.
If I have any complaint, it would involve the film’s coda. Salles strikes just the right final note between Ernesto and Alberto before they separate, and then he uses a series of title cards to sum up the rest of Che’s life in a couple of quick, broad strokes. He suddenly pours on the politics he so deftly avoided for the rest of the film, and then cuts to one shot of the real Alberto, who still lives in Cuba today. It seems like an odd misstep, oversimplifying something his film doesn’t even deal with, especially after such a sure-footed journey, but it’s just a small thing. Overall, this is a trip well worth taking.
"Moriarty" out.
