Now, that was one excellent flick. It's about Ernesto "Che" Guevara and his best friend, Alberto Granado as they go on a 10,000 kilometer motorcycle trip all across Sudamerica. As they depart their homebase in Argentina, they're just two boys, Ernesto nearly finished with medical school and Alberto a newly-minted biochemist, wanting to see the world and get laid as much as they can before they get old and tied down. But after passing through heights and valleys, mountains and deserts, they emerge as men.
If you're looking for a communist propaganda film, this isn't it. The story of Ernesto's self- actualization, however, does resonate with many similar mythical/religious figures. It's almost Buddhist as you watch him leave the stately boulevards of Buenos Aires and come in contact with the vast ethnic diversity of Latin America and share stories with a thirsty couple whose only option is to toil in a mine in the Atacama Desert after being evicted off their grandfather's farm for being communists, indigenous Incan descendants who are left with little money or livelihood, and Peruvian farmers who organize to save their land from the Lima bureaucrats.
After witnessing these hardships forced upon the common people, he reaches his final destination, the Brazilian San Pedro leper colony. The Amazon splits this colony into two, with the doctors and nurses living on the north bank and the lepers on the south bank. There, the Che/Buddha figure, on the eve of his 24th birthday, proclaims his wish for the unification of all indigenous peoples to the stunned nuns and then swims across the Amazon to the leper side. As the doctors and nuns call him to come back to their side, he nearly drowns from the self-baptism but reaches the cheering leper crowd. Ernesto, as Christ resurrected, declares he has "a lot of thinking to do," and, as the epilogue reads, within ten years becomes el commandante of Cuba. The CIA then assassinates him in the Bolivian jungle.
It's rather surprising that Che, with his prodigal journey, never quite became the leader of a new religion, but one could argue that his iconic stature affords him the same respect from his followers (particularly since socialism/communism frowns on religion) as Christ receives from his believers. Alberto goes on to found the Santiago School of Medicine and and his eternally loyal friend.
If you're looking for a communist propaganda film, this isn't it. The story of Ernesto's self- actualization, however, does resonate with many similar mythical/religious figures. It's almost Buddhist as you watch him leave the stately boulevards of Buenos Aires and come in contact with the vast ethnic diversity of Latin America and share stories with a thirsty couple whose only option is to toil in a mine in the Atacama Desert after being evicted off their grandfather's farm for being communists, indigenous Incan descendants who are left with little money or livelihood, and Peruvian farmers who organize to save their land from the Lima bureaucrats.
After witnessing these hardships forced upon the common people, he reaches his final destination, the Brazilian San Pedro leper colony. The Amazon splits this colony into two, with the doctors and nurses living on the north bank and the lepers on the south bank. There, the Che/Buddha figure, on the eve of his 24th birthday, proclaims his wish for the unification of all indigenous peoples to the stunned nuns and then swims across the Amazon to the leper side. As the doctors and nuns call him to come back to their side, he nearly drowns from the self-baptism but reaches the cheering leper crowd. Ernesto, as Christ resurrected, declares he has "a lot of thinking to do," and, as the epilogue reads, within ten years becomes el commandante of Cuba. The CIA then assassinates him in the Bolivian jungle.
It's rather surprising that Che, with his prodigal journey, never quite became the leader of a new religion, but one could argue that his iconic stature affords him the same respect from his followers (particularly since socialism/communism frowns on religion) as Christ receives from his believers. Alberto goes on to found the Santiago School of Medicine and and his eternally loyal friend.