[ThisWeek] The Motorcycle Diaries at the Kenworthy

[thisweek at kenworthy.org]

This week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre-

The Motorcycle Diaries (R)
Friday, January 21
7:00 PM
Saturday & Sunday, January 22 & 23
4:15 PM and 7:00 PM
$5 adults  
KFS passes accepted for Sunday movies
(See Review below)
* * *

Also in January - 

Stage Beauty (R)
Friday, January 28
7:00PM
Saturday & Sunday, January 29 & 30
4:30 and 7:00PM
* * *

February 2005 at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre . . .

Being Julia (R)
Feb 4 at 7:00 PM
Feb 5 - 6 at 4:30 and 7:00 PM

Yes Men (NR)
Feb 11 at 7PM
Feb 12 ­ 13 at 5:00 and 7:00 PM

House of Flying Daggers (R)
Feb 18 at 7PM
Feb 19 ­ 20 at 4:15 and 7:00 PM

UI Architecture Dept presents
Will Bruder lecture
February 25 at 5:00 PM
FREE

Dig (NR)
Feb 26 at 7:00 PM
Feb 27 at 4:15 and 7:00 PM

Regular Movie prices:  $5 adults, $2 children 12 and younger.
KFS passes accepted for Sunday movies

508 S. Main Street, Moscow, Idaho
For more information, call 208-882-4127 or visit www.kenworthy.org
* * *
This week¹s review-

THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES

Directed by Walter Salles; written (in Spanish, with English subtitles) by
José Rivera, based on ''The Motorcycle Diaries'' by Ernesto Che Guevara and
''With Che Through Latin America'' by Alberto Granado
Running time: 2 hours, 6 minutes.
''The Motorcycle Diaries'' is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent
or adult guardian) for strong language and sexual references.

As reviewed by A. O. Scott writing for the New York Times

In the spring of 1952, two young men set out by motorcycle on an ambitious,
footloose journey that they hoped would carry them from Buenos Aires up the
spine of Chile, across the Andes and into the Peruvian Amazon. Their road
trip, however inspired and audacious it might have been, could have faded
into personal memory and family lore, even though both travelers produced
written accounts of their adventures.

The older, a 29-year-old biochemist named Alberto Granado, is still alive
and appears at the very end of ''The Motorcycle Diaries,'' Walter Salles's
stirring and warm-hearted reconstruction of that long-ago voyage. Granado's
companion was a 23-year-old medical student named Ernesto Guevara de la
Serna, whose subsequent career as a political idol, revolutionary martyr and
T-shirt icon -- Che! -- reflects a charismatic, mysterious glow onto his
early life. 

''Is it possible to be nostalgic for a world you never knew?'' Ernesto
wonders as he contemplates Inca ruins in the Peruvian highlands. Mr.
Salles's film, as ardent and serious a quest as Ernesto's turned out to be,
poses a similar question. In making their movie, the cast and crew retraced
the route of Granado and Guevara three times, trying to connect not only
with the varied, rugged landscape of South America, but also with the hopes
and confusions of an earlier time: an era before the Cuban revolution,
before the military coups and dirty wars of the 1960's and 70's, before the
democratic resurgence and economic catastrophes that followed.

The filmmakers are not so naïve as to suppose that the old days were simpler
or more innocent than the present. The movie's feeling of freshness and
possibility comes from the wide-eyed intelligence of its heroes. But one
reason to explore the past is to try to rediscover an elusive sense of
forgotten possibility, and in Mr. Salles's hands what might have been a
schematic story of political awakening becomes a lyrical exploration of the
sensations and perceptions from which a political understanding of the world
emerges. What ''The Motorcycle Diaries'' captures, with startling clarity
and delicacy, is the quickening of Ernesto's youthful idealism, and the
gradual turning of his passionate, literary nature toward an as yet
unspecified form of radical commitment.

The film, written by José Rivera, is really a love story in the form of a
travelogue. The love it chronicles is no less profound -- and no less
stirring to the senses -- for taking place not between two people but
between a person and a continent. Mr. Bernal's soulful, magnetic performance
notwithstanding, the real star of the film is South America itself, revealed
in the cinematographer Eric Gautier's misty green images as a land of
jarring and enigmatic beauty.

At the end of the film, after his sojourn at the leper colony has confirmed
his nascent egalitarian, anti-authority impulses, Ernesto makes a birthday
toast, which is also his first political speech. In it he evokes a pan-Latin
American identity that transcends the arbitrary boundaries of nation and
race. ''The Motorcycle Diaries,'' combining the talents of a Brazilian
director and leading actors from Mexico (Mr. Bernal) and Argentina (Mr. de
la Serna), pays heartfelt tribute to this idea. In an age of mass tourism,
it also unabashedly revives the venerable, romantic notion that travel can
enlarge the soul, and even change the world.

As reviewed by Chris Hewitt writing for the St. Paul Pioneer Press

"Motorcycle Diaries" has no political agenda, just a human one. Director
Walter Salles' single-minded, straightforward structure makes the movie a
series of vignettes in which Ernesto and Alberto meet people ‹ pretty girls,
leftists, lepers, auto mechanics ‹ all of whom are so vivid they exist only
as themselves, not as part of some theme the movie imposes on the story.
"Motorcycle" is driven by Guevara/Salles' respect for the South American
people, which is why their stories have such a powerful impact on Guevara
and on us.

On the journey, Guevara begins to see the world as a place not of divisions
between people but of connections between them, and the beautiful thing
about the movie is that it doesn't need to spell that out for us. It simply
shows us the varied terrain of South America (including wondrous shots of
Machu Picchu) and the amazing faces of its people, all united in the attempt
to figure out what Guevara calls "the mysteries that surround us."

That's a lovely metaphor for life, but Salles finds an even better one. He
captures the faces of South America in periodic black-and-white scenes,
where the people appear to be trying to freeze into poses for snapshots. But
they can't freeze because, like the movie they're in, they are too full of
life and breath and hope to stand still.

As reviewed by Joe Williams writing for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

This is not your father¹s Che Guevara. The soulfully earnest young man we
meet in ³The Motorcycle Diaries² is an Argentine medical student named
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, who has not yet evolved into the beret-bedecked
revolutionary who would be immortalized on hippie T-shirts and Havana walls
as the fiery Che. 

This lyrical but low-key film captures a pivotal moment in Guevara¹s
awakening, the trip he took up the spine of South America with biochemist
Alberto Granado in 1952.

In Buenos Aires, Ernesto (Gael García Bernal) and Alberto (Rodrigo de la
Serna) climb aboard a lumbering old Norton motorcycle for what they expect
will be a summer adventure.

Their first stop provides a base point for Ernesto¹s climb to elevated
consciousness. He and Alberto visit the family estate of Ernesto¹s
girlfriend, Chichina (Mía Maestro). For a week, the possibility of a sexual
dalliance with this spoiled beauty threatens to derail the trip before it
begins, but after the bawdy Alberto grows bored with chasing the family¹s
maid, he cajoles Ernesto into hitting the road.

As the postcard vistas yield to the realities of life among the indigenous
poor, Ernesto¹s open-heartedness saves the story from mere paternalism. A
scene in a fish market where he introduces himself to each of the vendors
and inquires about their wares has the flavor of real life, at least in part
because the people are non-actors. And it¹s a clever deflation of myth that
the soon-to-be poster boy (who is played by one of the world¹s hottest
actors) is unable to seduce the peasant girls because he is such a lousy
dancer. 

Director Walter Salles (³Central Station²) shifts from slice-of-life realism
to something more spiritually resonant when the travelers reach the Peruvian
plateau. The locals, descended from the mighty Incas who built Machu Picchu,
now must beg the landed Hispanics for work in the mines. Yet, there is
nothing forced or phony about their perseverance, or about Ernesto¹s humble
ministrations to the sick.

One could conclude that the movie¹s monolithic benevolence is an implicit
endorsement of Che Guevara¹s later activities, which included guerrilla
campaigns in Cuba, the Congo and Bolivia, where he was killed by CIA-backed
forces. Yet, because this is ostensibly a true story, based on the diaries
of both men, it¹s unfair to judge ³The Motorcycle Diaries² in the light of
subsequent events. In its own right, it deserves a wide audience, because it
so lovingly captures that moment before the universal dream of a better
world is torn into competing prescriptions.

Film reviews researched and edited by Peter Haggart
* * *

Sign up for this weekly email on events and movies at the Kenworthy by
logging onto our website
http://www.kenworthy.org

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PAMELA PALMER, Volunteer
Mailto:ppalmer at moscow.com
Film and Events Committee
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

http://www.kenworthy.org
To speak with a KPAC staff member,
call (208) 882-4127
Mailto:kpac at moscow.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/thisweek/attachments/20050120/88312b6e/attachment.htm