Chris went to Gentry to visit with her sister this weekend. She took Jewell so Bo and I are home alone for a couple days. Last night I went to Blockbusters and picked up a half dozen movies to occupy some of our time.
The first one that I watched was a foreign film called "The Motorcycle Diaries". Released in 2004, this movie is the story of two Argentineans, Ernesto Guevara, a 23-year-old medical student specializing in leprosy, and Alberto Granado, a 29-year-old biochemist, as they traveled out of Buenos Aires in 1952 on a 1939 Norton 500 motorcycle. Before they parted some eight months later, they had ridden, walked, hitchhiked and sailed some 8,000 miles of Latin America. En route, they came face-to-face with a continent of poverty and injustice they yearned to change. It was a beautiful movie that made me reflect on my journey with my compatriot, Brady Cline, in 1997.
As I am researching more on the lives of these two individuals though, the picture is becoming less attractive.
"The Motorcycle Diaries" is a film about the sowing of revolution designed for the approval of bourgeois gentlefolk - for the very type of person that Che, once one himself, would not think twice about putting a bullet into. Why didn't the film acknowledge that violence and repression were at least as much a part of his legacy as egalitarianism, martyrdom and a really popular poster?
Well, I will continue to study more on the lives of these two very interesting people and you have a good weekend.
2 comments:
AMEN!!! People like to gloss over the fact that he was hardline Communist and not a true lover of freedom. This guy was ruthless no matter how idealistic and swell "The Motorcycle Diaries" portray him. Great post, Gene!
certainly is not what the movie shows, but also definitely a legend. look at castro and cuba, and the sha and iran....good post Gene.
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