Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
This is one of the films I’m really curious about this year. I’m hearing strong stuff across the board, and today’s review is no different...
Hey, Harry.
Straight from the sunny Brazil, here I come to let all fellow geeks know about a cinematic gem: The Motorcycle Diaries, the new movie from Central Station's and Behind the Sun's Walter Salles. I just saw the premiere of the movie in São Paulo, and he was there chocked with raw emotion. Granted, Central Station is way too deep in sacaryne, and Behind the Sun just had no emotional impact on me whatsoever. But, my friend, The Motorcycle Diaries is the real deal. Walter Salles is all grown up as a director now.
The movie, for everybody who hasn't read a line on the latest Sundance Festival, follows the journey of a young medicine student, Ernesto Guevara, and his friend, Alfredo Granada, from Buenos Aires to Caracas riding "La Poderosa", a 1939 Nexus 500. To quote from Larry Mullen Jr. in the U2 film, Rattle and Hum, it's an "emotional journey". You better believe it. What started as a trip of two friends who wanted to see their continent (and bed a lot of women) ended up as a portrait of a boy becoming a man. After all, Ernesto was 23 at the time, but the places he's been and the people he saw planted the seed of what his life would become. Yes, Ernesto "Che" Guevara is the name the whole world came to know and respect.
But we don't see Fidel's buddy here, not a revolutionary, not a guy who relies on guns. On The Motorcycle Diaries, Che is a real person, not a myth. He's down-to-his-heart honest, and we witness ths change in his eyes when the road gets to him. Really, guys, I won't spoil any of the movie moments here. Helmer Walter Salles, who alongside with cast and crew recreated the long journay of Guevara and Granada, wants you to take the experience in the raw. From the innocenco of the Buenos Aires streets, to the last goodbye with his girlfriend, Ernesto - or "Fuser", the nickname Granada gives him - comes to see poverty, social disbalance, the power of money and the pleasures of helping people. Gael Garcia Bernal - who, believe me, is to become a big star after this thing of beauty is released - has it all, and is in such command of his craft that you can't help yourself but pack your things and tag along. It's all in the eyes, and his innocence is crashed under the weight of sheer reality, what he sees changes the man he wanted to become and, as history taught us well, makes him rethink his future, once a very well drawn path, now a blurred line lost in the mist.
Salles, with his visual flair and smooth storytelling - the movie was edited by City of God's Academy Award nominated Daniel Rezende -, has just shown to the whole world what Brazil - and Latin America - has to show the old farts who makes movies what new blood can do to the experience of going to the theater and having your perception of life forever altered. It's Salles, and Alfonso Cuarón, and Fernando Meirelles, and Guillermo del Toro, and Alessandro Iñarritú (fuck, did I just mispelled it?). Man, I can't wait to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Or The Constant Gardener. And the remake of the japanese fright fest Dark Water, in the hands os Salles himself. He showed it to me. When the lights are back on after The Motorcycle Diaries, you'll all see it too.
If you use it, just call me Nathan da Silva
Thanks, Nathan.
"Moriarty" out.
