Al Otro Lado Del Rio

The film "The Motorcycle Diaries" has a lovely, ambling feel to it, a beautiful storyline that tells of the young Ernesto "Che" Guevara before his revolutionary years, and it humanizes a legend.

Gael Garcia Bernal is such an affecting actor; I loved him in “Y Tu Mama Tambien,” and I look forward to seeing him in “Bad Education.” Bernal’s gentleness and empathy for the unfortunate make his Che extraordinarily appealing. It seems to me that this is at the expense of history, to some extent, but to the benefit of the film. Che must have been a remarkable man to know, and he must have had extraordinary charisma. “Ernesto” was a perfect name for a man of focus and devotion.

But Che could be a cold-blooded killer, murdering people before they’d had a chance at a trial, and so sure that his Marxist beliefs justified homicide. Knowing, as a man of his intellect and worldliness must have, what excesses and extremes had been undertaken in the Soviet Union and in China in the name of Communism, it is hard for me, coming from my affluent, modern, anglo world, to understand how he could embrace such a system.

Had Che lived twenty years earlier in the young flush of Communism and seen hope in it for poor South Americans then, I could understand his embrace of it, but coming along when he did, it is hard for me to understand how he (and Castro) could ignore the obvious excesses of regimes which crushed the souls, the freedoms, and hopes of so many millions of people. His last words (supposedly something like “Go ahead and shoot me; you're only going to kill a man") are so coldblooded, they couldn’t have come from the man we met in “The Motorcycle Diaries.” He must have had that steeliness in his personality before he became a revolutionary; to determine to become an athlete despite severe asthma, to become a doctor, to travel around South America, and to work and live intimately with lepers all show a sense of purpose and discipline, but the harder sides of that determination never show up in Bernal’s portrayal. Again, perhaps that is to the benefit of the film, and certainly to the benefit of Che’s legacy and in keeping with revolutionary propaganda.

It is to the eternal shame of the United States that we have reacted out of fear of Communism by infiltrating and overthrowing governments ourselves, ignoring the choices of the citizens of other countries when it was not in our interest, and had a hand in Che's death. It does bother me some when a historical figure of such importance is reintroduced so engagingly to the public in a way that denies what had to have been lifelong and fundamental elements of his personality. It is not always the job of the artist (in this case, the filmmaker) to give us the full, balanced, and sweeping story of Guevara's life if it does not serve his or her artistic purpose. I think, however, in presenting what purports to be a true story about such a historically significant person, it is always a good and responsible thing for those who make the film to tell as even-handed and as accurate a story as they can. But that is an artistic choice, and even if I do not always agree with it, I must respect it.

It is harder for me to respect a filmmaker who alters reality to enhance the narrative of a biography when large and important aspects of a subject's life or behavior are whitewashed, altered, or excised in order to heighten the drama at the expense of getting to know the person. I know, whitewashing biographies is as old as the art of writing them, but I appreciate it when the biographer at least makes an effort at honesty. In "The Motorcycle Diaries" Che's harder side was not much in evidence, but we were not led to believe it did not exist. The so-called biography of John Nash presented in the wildly inaccurate film "A Beautiful Mind" angered me not because of the fantasy sequences and the imaginary friends, but because of what were billed as the "true" parts of the story, which left out his divorce from his wife and his bisexuality because of fears that these truths would render Nash less appealing to the average film-goer. But these omissions built a false and misleading understanding of his relationship with his wife, which is at the core of the film and is supposed to be the rock upon which his recovery is based. I think taking such license with the truth and billing the result as an honest portrayal is manipulative and mendacious, and I have great difficulty enjoying the resulting film because of this lack of honesty. (And I dislike it even more because of what I find a false-sounding, obvious, and hackneyed script.)

Obviously, Che still has millions of fans, had a big heart, and was willing to suffer torture and death for his ideals of equality and dignity for all South Americans. Still, I would have liked a little more hint of the dichotomy between his tender side and his ruthless devotion and determination. In the film, we see him risk his life rather than spend his girlfriend’s money, ignore the wishes of the nuns who run the leper colony at which he works, lie to get his friend's motorcycle fixed for free and to get free food and drink from women he meets on his trip, but those actions are gently and appealingly, even comically, portrayed. I just have the feeling there must have been a darker, steelier core to the man than what we saw in this film. That said, it is still lovely filmmaking.

The song at the end of the film (“Al Otro Lado Del Río”) is quite beautiful. I fear many viewers will turn off the film during the credits and miss hearing Jorge Drexler sing it. I wish he had been allowed to sing it at the Academy Awards presentation this year, rather than Antonio Banderas, whose performance had more brio and less of the lyrical quality which makes the song so delicious. Like the film, the song is a quiet work of art and should be appreciated as such.