The Motorcycle Diaries (2004): trivia & fun facts

Fun facts

• The crew filmed in the same San Pablo Leper Colony that Guevara himself had visited.
• The film recounts the 1952 expedition, initially by motorcycle, across South America by Guevara and Granado, observing the life of the impoverished indigenous peasantry.
• The film was first presented at the Sundance Film Festival on 15 January 2004.
• Donostia-San Sebastián International Film Festival: Audience Award Walter Salles; 2004.
• The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on 15 January 2004, and was later added into the main competition of the 57th Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury.
• Gael García Bernal agreed to reprise his role as young Che Guevara having previously portrayed him in the television film Fidel.
• The score for The Motorcycle Diaries was composed by Gustavo Santaolalla.
• The Observer reported that shortly after the film's release, tour operators in the region received a surge of inquiries, with some of them even offering Che Guevara-themed trips, where travellers could "follow in the footsteps of the revolutionary icon."
• The Motorcycle Diaries was released to very positive reviews by critics, and received a standing ovation at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.
• Anthony Daniels, an outspoken critic of Guevara's, argued that the film helps to continue his wrongful glorification, noting "The film is thus the cinematic equivalent of the Che Guevara T-shirt; it is morally monstrous and emotionally trivial."
• Granado was also pleased that buildings constructed for the scenes shot at the leprosarium were afterwards used by the patients themselves.
• Jessica Winter of The Village Voice also criticized the film's simplistic representation of the peasantry, describing "the young men's encounters with conscience-pricking, generically noble locals" who are occasionally assembled "to face the camera in a still life of heroic, art-directed suffering".

Source: Wikipedia

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