Motorcycle Diaries

A FILM BY WALTER SALLESI always wondered what was the fascination with Che Guevara. It's apparently really hip to have a poster or t-shirt with Che's yellow silhouette on a black background- I see it all over college campuses. An eerie, romantic emblem of communism in the middle of capitalism. Motorcycle Diaries is a story about Che's travels through Latin America - giving us glimpses of how he developed into a passionate revolutionary - directed by brazilian Walter Salles. By the way, who hasn't seen "Central Station", also directed by Salles? A great movie about despair and hope.

But back to Motorcycle Diaries. It was produced by Robert Redford, so it has a thick Hollywood veneer, making it "prettier" than it had to be. But it is still an effective story of how a journey can transform an individual. Che stepped away from his confortable Buenos Aires life, and his eyes opened to the world of social injustice. Brief encounters with men and women struggling developed his natural gift of empathy- we know from history that this gift erupted into a revolutionary spirit.
Many of us are fortunate enough to travel these days, and travel also opens our eyes. "Us" being the cosmopolitan, privileged generation of the 20th century who finds travel to exotic countries to be a feasible way to spend time. It's quite amazing, actually, that you probably know someone (maybe yourself?) who has been to Thailand, Egypt, or Australia. Travel remains the ultimate luxury. Even Che, which is remembered as a "man of the masses", came from a wealthy family in Argentina. Being wealthy, though, made the adventure a possibility, which made his revolution a reality. Not everyone is inclined to social revolution. But everyone is affected by travel.

I speak not of tourism, which is largely for the sake of entertainment, for the sake of photographs and souvenirs to show off back home. I speak of travel for the sake of experience, the immersion into a different culture, or simply to struggle through a foreign land. Preferably, you'll have very little money, not much of a plan (or at least, a plan that is constantly changing), and an open-ness to whatever happens next. When we have to rely on our ingenuity and spontenaity to get from point A to B, then we get a glimpse of who we are.

It is possible to get a glimpse of our true nature when we're not travelling- that is, when we're living our day-to-day activities of work, school, and friends. But those glimpses are obscured by thick layers of familiarity. What we are familiar with carries loaded stereotypes, so even when an unconventional thing happens we still assume it is conventional. One of the attractions of travel is that everything is unconventional- it's all stimulus, new-ness, excitement. But the positive side effect is that we really have to look into things, stare at them, because it is hard to figure out what is not conventional to our mind. That is what Che did: he looked at things, stared at them, and he changed. Everytime you throw yourself out there into the unknown, you also change. The question is, what are you becoming?