The Motorcycle Diaries

It never occurred to me that putting one of history's greatest monsters in their early years into quirky subtitled road movie form would be an instant Sundance hit.

Clearly we should follow this formula to its conclusion, like how we should have had Mussolini's Big Adventure by now where he dreams as a young boy of having the trains run on time...

This movie, which I am about to finish watching, makes me concerned that it's trying to appeal to people who have no concept of who Che Guevara actually was, trying to imprint a positive, quirky bro-tee coffee shop image in them while their opinions on the man are still a blank slate. It's worse than propaganda, it doesn't even give you the credit of taking an actual political viewpoint on the man's ideals other than "Historical bromance is indie gold!".

And good God, I hope there isn't any shipping, because the depiction of Ernesto here as a Communist Jesus who heals the sick as a trainee doctor makes me wretch enough as it is.

I don't think there's any shipping, but yeah, the over-romantization that some people do about him and his life is kinda unsettling. Then again most people don't say anything about it since they only know Che as that dude from the t-shirts.

And I forgot to mention, when I saw certain... scenery shots of the Amazon, and mentioning of the Indian tribesmen there... I was forced, FORCED by the film itself to imagine Ernesto being eaten alive by the Tree People of Cannibal Holocaust while they still could so Bolivia didn't have to deal with this monster later.

I suspect that Cannibal Holocaust was the movie that forever loops back in my mind when the Amazon rainforest is connected with subtext of "guys in jungle who shoot a bunch of people". Ernesto is by no means the kind of Professor Monroe figure that his friend in The Motorcycle Diaries disturbingly looks like a fat doppelganger of... he's more like those guys who are shooting Amazonian tribesmen in the background because they're hired guns on a recovery mission that's not too optimistic about finding them alive. As in, not Communist Jesus, but guy in military combat boots who shoots the shit out of people because it's his way of life.