A Film that Stirs Pasions

A FILM THAT STIRS PASSIONS
The premiere of "The Motorcycle Diaries", which portrays the life of the young "Che" Guevara, disturbs mainstream American media.

By Eduardo Stanley (nuestroforo2001 [at] yahoo.com)

FRESNO, CA—Film critics in the United States took advantage of the release of a film about Ernesto Guevara to preach mythicizing values on power and distortions of historic realities.

After boasting the production, Rick Bentley, movie critic of "The Fresno Bee", stated Friday, Oct. 22, 2004 on page E6 that "The film does not show the future dark side (of the personality of Guevara). If your knowledge about Guevara only comes from this film, then you'll believe he was Cuba's Ghandi ... But there, he ordered violent interrogatories, tortures and prisoners executions. The ‘Motorcycle Diaries’ does little to show the metamorphosis of Guevara's life."

However, such changes in the future life of "Che" are present in the movie, including the source of such a transformation: social injustice. The trip of Guevara and his friend, Alberto Granado, from Buenos Aires to Venezuela in 1952 contributed decisively to their consciousness transformation. The film ends when Guevara goes back to Argentina to finish his medicine career and his friend accepts a job offer in Venezuela.

Two years later, the CIA overthrows Guatemala's president, Jacobo Arbenz, and replaced his government with one of the bloodiest dictatorships in the continent.

In real life, Guevara took off on a trip to Latin America again, and ended up in Mexico where he met Fidel Castro. Then, in 1959, they embarked toward the Revolution in Cuba. Prior to this, however, the future "Che" spent months in Guatemala where he witnessed the horror of the military dictatorship commanded from Washington, as well as of the social misery of the country, still prominent to this day.

It would be too lengthy to describe the history of the American invasions throughout Latin America before 1952. The film does not pinpoint a specific country, but it does signal, subtly, two world powers at the time (Spain and the United States) as being responsible for the human misery of the countries Guevara visited.

Also, something quite important slipped through the fingers of the movie critics: The Cuban revolution overthrew one of the most popular puppets of the United States at the time, Fulgencio Batista, who ruled the island with an iron hand and entirely served American corporations from 1933 and onward.

Bentley talks about the "dark side of the personality of Guevara" without elaborating. Such omission may imply that the number two leader of the Cuban Revolution has a "bad", "perverse" or "dark" side. There are various psychological studies of historic figures, such as of Hitler and Stalin, which prove that. But in the case of Guevara, even those who have tried to prove such theories have failed.

Did "Che" really have that kind of side to him? There is no proof, but just in case, "we might as well plant the seed of doubt". Such is the message of the mainstream American media, which, even 40 years after his death, still cannot accept his actions, ideals or understand he never wanted power or fortune.

"Che" never denied his being responsible for violent actions, normal in most revolutions. But, immediately after gaining control in Cuba, his duty was to reconstruct Cuba’s economy—he didn't serve on any police-like position. In his various writings, "Che" also explains his use of violence in the fight for power. The same arguments have also been described by a number of historians who show how the conservative power denied giving up the power, creating even more violence.

Well known film critic Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun Times, goes to the extreme of saying "Ché", as well as his friend Fidel Castro, was a rightist disguised as a communist. He concludes by making the typical address about freedom of expression, but he doesn't mention that in Batista's Cuba, and the rest of the continent, people did not have the right to such a freedom, nor do they have that today. Furthermore, in countries which suffered a direct US invasion, like Guatemala, Nicaragua, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Panama, misery and repression were even more acute.

The film captures a variety of historic moments in the continent: the struggles of its peoples, the grandness of the landscape, as well as the discrimination and misery among the indigenous population. Produced by an American (Robert Redford), directed by a Brazilian (Walter Salles), and starring a Mexican actor (Gael García Bernal) along with an Argentinean co-star (Rodrigo de la Serna), the film portrays the early years of an Argentinean (Ernesto "Ché" Guevara), who would later participate in the Cuban Revolution.


No doubt Ché, who had no time to get old, would be proud of such a team. And he'd be laughing at those critics for being repetitive and boring.