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Directed by Walter Salles
UK release date: 27 August 2004
US release date: 24 September 2004
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M edicine is often a mix of disillusionment and conflicting ideologies, misplaced respect and status, friendship and solidarity. These are values that surprisingly play a central theme in The Motorcycle Diaries , a film about a young Che Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado.
Guevara's iconic status as a revolutionary is immortalised in Alberto Corda's famous photograph, ironically used as a money spinning machine to adorn posters, T shirts, and mugs. But perhaps what is less well known is that Ernesto "Che" Guevara was a doctor, whose political future was shaped by a journey through South America as a medical student with Granado.
Their adventure is detailed in this inspirational film based on Guevara's diary (published as a book of the same name), two years' extensive research, and first hand accounts from Granado.
The journey starts in Buenos Aires in 1952 when Granado (played by Rodrigo de la Serna), a hospital biochemist with a special interest in leprosy, invites Guevara (Gael Garcia Bernal), an upper middle class medical student jaded by college, hospitals, and exams, to travel through South America on his motorcycle, "La Ponderosa II."
Credit: IMAGE NET Initially the pair are keen to exploit their respected status as doctors to secure free accommodation, food, and women. Granado's goal was...