Noah Mitchell
May 1, 2007
Movie Assignment
In the film The Motorcycle Diaries, two best friends, Ernesto “Fuser” Guevara and Alberto Granado take off across Latin America on “The Mighty One,” their beat-up motorcycle. The trip is a remedy for their “restlessness” and their love for the “open road.” They leave civilization in an attempt to complete their trip on Alberto’s 30th birthday.
They first travel to the home of Ernesto’s girlfriend, Chichina, for about a week. While Ernesto believes he is in love, Alberto looks forward to sleeping with as many women as possible on their trip. In Argentina and beyond, after they have lost their tent, they rely on the kindness of others for shelter. Alberto prefers to pretend that the two are big-shot doctors to “bullshit” his way into getting help. Ernesto also goes along with much of this “bullshitting,” though he accurately diagnoses an older man whom they confront with a tumor on his neck. Alberto keeps telling the man he is not in danger to calm him down, but Ernesto sticks to the truth, saying “I’ll work with you, but not if it risks a man’s health.” Alberto replies, “You know what your problem is? Your honesty!”
Alberto also foolishly endangers Ernesto’s life by persuading him to wade a lake to retrieve a duck for food. Ernesto becomes dangerously sick. Ernesto proves to be not completely innocent, however, when he flirts with a mechanic’s wife in Chile, but later, he chooses to help out a stranger’s sick mother over sleeping with two sisters they run into. He gives the stranger’s mother his own precious pills to lessen her pain until death.
Later, they meet a couple who lost their property to a land speculator. These people travel out of necessity, while Alberto and Ernesto travel for the sake of traveling (i.e. for enjoyment). Ernesto gives this couple $15 given to him by Chichina. They meet indigenous Inca people who live making hand crafts. They enter Machu Picchu, feeling “nostalgia for a world [they] never knew.” They finally arrive at a leper community, their goal. “Life is pain,” one woman says. “Yeah. It’s pretty screwed up,” Ernesto replies. There they “free [their] minds from narrow provincialism.” Fuser swims, now against Alberto’s will, across a river in a symbolic attempt of uniting lepers with non-lepers. Finally, the two depart, with Ernesto leaving to start his new job. Ernesto “Che” Guevara became a leader in the Cuban revolution.
This story taught expanded my view on life in several ways. First, I came to profoundly respect Ernesto’s attitude that whenever anyone’s health or well-being is on the line, he would stand up for what is right, no matter what his own needs are. This view stems from the belief that good and bad or right and wrong come in different degrees. In Ernesto’s worldview, though it is one thing to flirt with some women and lie about his trip and his identity to get them to buy him food, it is something so much more heinous to neglect the health of a complete stranger that will never return a favor. This idea acts as a mirror to me. Do I see what is truly important in the morality of my own life? Do I respect human dignity and human life above all other things? Protection of the environment for future generations comes to mind here, as does giving to charities fighting poverty.
Secondly, Ernesto displays an amazingly powerful willpower. If he does something, he does it passionately. If he refuses to take part in something, he does it obstinately. He even tells a respected leper scholar, Hugo Pesce, that Pesce’s book is not worth finishing. This stark, naked honesty shocks the man, but demands respect: “Damn you boy. No one has ever been this honest with me. No one.” His will inspires me to be adamant and resolute in supporting the judgment of my conscience in moral dilemmas, and challenges me to put this desire into action.
Lastly, Enesto’s empathy is astounding. He feels the sadness, the despair, the hopefulness or the hopelessness of those around him, including the lepers, the stranger with a sick mother, the couple that lost their property, and the old man with the tumor on his neck. He never distances himself from these people in any way, but does all in his power to listen to them and give them anything he can, such as Chichina’s $15 or his own medicine. Following his heart-felt passion for justice and his benevolence, I cannot help but be challenged to assimilate his empathy for the poor, dejected, and unlucky, especially amid my own wealth, popularity, and good fortune.