<br /><div class="MsoNormal">“Que te pasa?” Alberto asks his che, Ernesto, as he looks out to the leper colony across the river that segregates them. Wanting to spend his birthday with the leper colony, he swims across the deep river and miraculously makes it to the other side. Many times, the audience sees the pensive eyes of Ernesto, played by Gael Garcia Bernal. These are the moments that captivate Ernesto and change the young medical student to a guerilla revolutionary. The Motorcycle Diaries is 2004 film inspired from Guevara’s writings traveling through South America with his close friend, Alberto Granado. What the film shows is the start of their journey across Argentina, Chile, Peru, and ends with their separation in Venezuela where Granado continues his scientific track and Ernesto on the road to revolutionary politics.</div><div class="MsoNormal">The implication of political and social injustices in South America changed the course of Ernesto’s life. These injustices gave Che a reason to become what he became; however, a character like Guevara would naturally take much of this into his platform as Eduardo Elena analyzes. Was it unusual that medical student Guevara deviate from his conventional life? To those who are not aware of his early life, the life of a revolutionary is uncharacteristic. However, Che was from a family that did not have a permanent setting. As a child, he heard stories from his grandmother of her father’s experience living in America during the gold rush (Elena 4). In his childhood, the traveling mindset was instilled in the young Guevara through either adventurer books to hikes to bicycling through unknown lands (Elena 4). Seeing the “unknown Latin America” was the utmost important priority for the young explorer. According to Elena, his non-conformist mindset set the method for his travel. He refused to travel as a common tourist, only exposed to the “symbolically important places.” </div><div class="MsoNormal">His strong opposition for traveling as a common tourist was influenced by the political surroundings around Che. His trip was an adventure, but an adventure is mostly an escapist act from a seeming reality. Although Guevara was indifferent to Juan Peron’s regime, the regime and its venues reminded Che of a façade that a government creates for its people (Elena 6). He wanted to see these places through the lives of "the sick, prisoners in jail, and ordinary pedestrians” (Elena 7). In fact, they make many stops that are unconventional such as their stay in the leper colony. Guevara remains loyal to his unconventional and anti-conformist ways, which only continued to grow stronger as he travels. In the film, he refuses to wear gloves upon his visit to the leper colony believing it is purely symbolic of a need for separation.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> In the film, once Alberto and Ernesto lose their bike, they resemble any pedestrian walking through. They begin the journey as fun-loving youth, but many ventures in Peru change Che’s motives. Characteristically reading, Ciro Alegria’s <i>Broad and Alien is the World</i> enlightens Che about Indian groups. (Drinot 7). The future revolutionary mindset leaks out when he responds to Alberto’s plan at a bloodless Tupac-Amaru revolution. To Che, the socio-economic status of Indian families forced on by the elite classes “barely recognize the humanity” of this group (9). The mistreatment of Indian groups, American imperialism, and false face imposed by Latin American dictators all influenced Guevara’s transformation.</div><div class="MsoNormal">After his birthday speech of a united America, Granado facially expresses that he has noticed a change in Guevara. Indeed, the young Che was changed. Drinot best summarizes Guevara’s final views after his trek across South America as a man who believed that the only effective political change was “through violent revolution led by people capable of emancipation those who could not emancipate themselves.” </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4507342150998272570-3712712726649357504?l=aoutk475.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
