......by motorcycle across South America from their home in Buenos Aires, to see as much of the world as can be seen without leaving the continent. Alberto is eight years the senior, and he’s also a much more robust and fun-loving figure. Ernesto is an asthmatic,; he’s hesitant, a little uncertain, almost in a daze at times. The one dances, the other doesn’t. The two bicker frequently, sometimes almost violently, but it’s clear the affection also runs deep.The duo’s first stop is to the lush rural estate of Ernesto’s girlfriend. She isn’t thrilled that her boyfriend will be away for so long. She promises to wait...for a while. After a two-day visit that turns into a week, the two set off for the south.

The next hour of the film is packed with motor-cycle crashes, spectacular scenery, hostile and friendly strangers, problems with funds, encounters with beautiful women, village dances, bad weather, and mechanical problems, all of which are presented with a slightly faded majesty that evokes the innocence of a bygone era. The raillery that Ernesto and Alberto sustain is thoroughly engaging, and the youthful vacuity of their adventures adds another layer of charm to the events. Director Walter Salles brings a kind of glowing life to both the settings and the people, and this gives the events being depicted—often inconsequential in themselves—a picaresque humor and warmth. At one or two points the film descends to the level of public television travelogue, but even here, it’s travelogue of the highest order, and far more real than even the best Hollywood tale of superheroes or hit men.

The journey becomes more difficult once the motorcycle dies and our adventurers are forced to proceed on foot across the deserts of Chile. In the Andes Alberto and Ernesto also begin to meet up with indigenous people looking for work in the mines, having been dispossessed of their lands. Much of the appeal of the Motorcycle Diaries lies in its good-natured tone and in the exotic character of the scenery, but there is also an undercurrent of self-discovery. Having seen how the poor, the homeless, the hopeless deal with their condition, Ernesto in particular feels the need to rethink his values, and his future.

The great merit of The Motorcycle Diaries is to have brought these varied forms of love—between buddies, between women and men, between travelers and the landscape, and even between an individual and “mankind”—to life on the screen simultaneously. It’s a minor point to add that the film is a true story, and that Ernesto “grew up” to be Che Guevara, a high-profile revolutionary in Fidel Casto’s Cuba. Anyone who admires Che will find a good deal to like in this beautiful film, but even those who question the value of Che’s impact on Latin American life may leave the theater pondering the evident fact that even the most heartless militancy has its roots in youthful idealism.

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