The Motorcycle Diaries

AroView: Brazilian director Walter Salles helms this sumptuous two-wheeled road trip across 1950s South America with the youthful, asthmatic Ernesto “Che” Guevara (Gael Garcia Bernal), and friend Alberto Granado riding pillion.

Capturing the iconic 20th century hero on the cusp of adulthood, Guevara finds himself profoundly moved by first time encounters with the impoverished millions of the Latin continent, becoming the key moment in his conversion to ‘revolution’ in Cuba and elsewhere. That the film traverses a plethora of beautiful rural landscapes, clinches the historical moment with a culturally exotic backdrop.

As a romantic paean to the freedom and uncomplicated idealism of youth, this teeters into naivety at times, but finally succeeds with its tender and truthful central portrait of male friendship.