An Entertaining Ride on a Bumpy Road to the Coming of Age

Walter Salles’ Motorcycle Diaries is a story of a young medical student named Ernesto and his friend Alberto Granado’s travels on a rickety old motorcycle to experience Ernesto's coming of age as they explore countries, as they travel throughout South America in the early 1950s. Unlike most of the other travelers they meet throughout their journey that are traveling due to hardships, the boys are traveling mainly for fun and adventure, leading to both good and bad times. Unlike Alberto, Ernesto’s compassion for others becomes evident when he begins feeling sorry for those who are diseased, out of work, or without a life’s purpose. For instance, Ernesto gives his last fifteen dollars to a communist couple who were forced to leave their child in search for work yet he gets ridiculed for his kind action by Alberto who wished to use the fifteen dollars to pay off a prostitute. The journey of Ernesto is based off of the true story of Che Guevara who traveled across South America as a young man, learning about the world and developing ideals that would help shape him into the powerful man that he became.

Firstly, I must say that Walter Salles did a fantastic job depicting Ernesto in such a way that his personality and looks charm almost anybody watching Motorcycle Diaries. The audience constantly wants him to survive his harsh asthma attacks, successfully cure sick patients, and fall in love with any women he meets. Although Ernesto wins the hearts of most, the specific audience that chose to watch Motorcycle diaries for historical knowledge of Che Guevara may not find Ernesto’s character quite as pleasing. Salles designed the movie to be more entertaining (which was successfully accomplished) than historically accurate and detailed. He depicted Ernesto with mainly positive characteristics to draw in his audience, leaving out Che Guevara’s political aspirations and complicated view of the world. Therefore, I would not recommend watching Motorcycle Diaries as a way of learning about Che Guevara’s coming of age but rather for entertainment purposes only. If one wishes to learn the details and accurate story of Che Guevara’s travels then I recommend reading "Notes de Viaje" written by Che Guevara himself and watching Motorcycle Diaries for pure enjoyment sake.

The movie’s focus on leprosy and the respect doctors were given in the 1950s added a whole other dimension to the movie. As a person who was not born during that time period, I found it interesting to see the development of medicine now from how it was back then. Parallel to the development of medicine, viewers also witness the development of Ernesto’s outlook on life throughout the movie. He begins as a romantic boy full of idealism and slowly turns into a man who is aware of what is going on around him both socially and politically.

Personally, I am looking forwarding to joining Ernesto and Alberto on their adventure many times again in the future. Motorcycle Diaries is the type of movie that can be enjoyed multiple times because it uses subtitles, causing people (whose first language is not Spanish) to pay close attention to reading the subtitles rather than the intriguing scenery and superb acting.