Comparision: "Che" and Motorcycle Diaries

I recently watched "Che", Steven Soderbergh's mammoth attempt to chronicle Ernesto 'Che' Guevara's role in the Cuban revolution. The movie is a wonderful watch and has a compassionate yet unsympathetic view of the time and period. Che, unlike Soderbergh's regular glossy fare has a documentary style look to it. Soderbergh clearly refuses to indulge in heroism that is normally associated with biopics. There is an effort on the director's part to understand, why there was a revolution in the first place and what drives young men of like Che to take on these risks.

Benicio Del Toro looks and fits the part of Che. While method acting is nothing new in today's cinema, Del Toro almost natural resemblence and deep understanding of the character takes it to a new level.

Compare this with Walter Salles, "The Motorcycle Diaries". Based on the book with the same name by Che himself, is a deeply romanticized version peppered with poems by Neruda and other Latin American poets. Che, then a medical student, travels almost half way around South America to reach a Colombian leprosy camp. Along the road trip he talks to people and makes the first attempt to understand their problems. One can almost see the developing of an intellectual sureness that made him leave a perfectly serene life in Buenos Aires and fight in a distant land in the name of justice.

Che, your ideals may have been forgotten, but your life and image live on in these movies and our t-shirts.