Motorcycle Diaries


Fuser and Alberto on the road in Motorcycle Diaries


Saw the new Walter Salles' film, The Motorcycle Diaries last night. It stars Gael García Bernal as Guevara (seen previously in Amores Perros and Y Tu Mama Tambien). The screenplay is based on Guevara's Journals and Alberto Granado's Travelling with Che Guevara: The Making of a Revolutionary. Although the film does glamourise the young Guevara (through his romantic portrayal by Bernal, and his almost Ghandian response to the inmates of the leper colony) I thought it was impressive -especially in the use of amateur actors to portray the native Americans, peasants and lepers that they encounter along the way. The use of black-and white portraits of Latin America's dispossessed was also effective.

• Motorcycle Diaries website: has an interview with Alberto Granado who visited the set during the film's production. Granado is now 81 years old and lives with his wife and children in Havana, Cuba.
• Guardian review: discusses the growing Guevara legend, and reminds us of some of the realities of Guevara's later career.
• IMDb