AMG Review of Motorcycle Diaries

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

In January 1952, a 23-year-old Argentine medical student and his friend, a biochemist, set out on a motorcycle from Buenos Aires to explore South America, making their way west, north, and finally east through the continent until they eventually reached the Venezuelan coast. It was a journey of discovery for the two, the kind of adventure Jack Kerouac was having at about the same time in a car crossing the U.S. and that he immortalized in the novel -On the Road. The medical student and his friend also wrote about their trip, one in a diary at the time and the other in a memoir later. None of this might have attracted much attention if the medical student hadn't been Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, aka Ché Guevara, who went on to become a famous revolutionary and whose image, in beard and beret, continues to be a symbol for activists on the far left. Walter Salles' film #The Motorcycle Diaries recreates the journey, which opened Guevara's eyes to the struggles of the poor in South America, and Gustavo Santaolalla's score is also a musical journey through the same territory. Santaolalla, an Argentine rock musician who previously scored #21 Grams, is only nominally concerned with authenticity in his musical cues, most of them played by his five-piece band. He gets a folkish flavor in much of his music, but he also falls back on the electric guitar, sometimes played with a rock slant, not exactly what you'd expect to hear in the South American countryside in 1952. He also throws in a few tunes by others, notably a mambo by Pérez Prado and the pretty "Al Otro Lado del Río" by Jorge Drexler, which closes the soundtrack album. An orchestral score would have been inappropriate for a film of this kind, and this one instead evokes the native music of the countries through which Guevara passed without being slavishly traditional.