THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES (15) - HORNIMAN MUSEUM & GARDENS

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Surely there can be nothing better in the whole wide world than to watch a film about the open road in the open air? Well how about watching a film in the open air - under the stars - about the open road starring the truly dreamy - and truly talented - Gael García Bernal. Can such an experience be surpassed? Answers on a postcard.

Bernal (Y Tu Mamá También; Amores Perros; Bad Education) plays a young Ernesto Guevara, before he became the revolutionary supremo Che, and back when he was a 23-year-old hitting the road for the summer, before graduating from medical school. As he and his buddy start their epic road trip, it’s all fun and frivolity at the start… but it’s not long before the poverty and inequality they witness ignites the fire within the two young men that ultimately will unfold into revolution.

Paul Webster, the film’s producer has said, “The Che of The Motorcycle Diaries is more akin to Jack Kerouac or Neal Cassidy than Marx or Lenin” and what makes this film so brilliant is catching a glimpse of the man before he became the legend. Based on the autobiographical travelogue written by Guevara himself as he travelled, this is a real-life adventure that shows us the first signs of the stones that would go on to cause the ripples of revolution across South America - and beyond - and would turn a young man into an icon.

Directed by eminent Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles (Central Station; Dark Water; Paris, je t’aime), this is the first of our Latin mini-series at the Horniman Museum & Gardens this summer: Catch Salles’ moving story of tough love in tough times, Central Station, just a few days later, for a South American cinematic experience you’ll never forget.

Spanish with English subtitles

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