A goal of this paper is to identify the episodes from the life of travelers that affect their future outlook and personality formation. The first film is «Diarios de motocicleta», shot in 2004 by Walter Salles (Diarios De Motocicleta), and the second one is «Sin dejar huella», filmed in 2000 by María Novaro (Sin Dejar Huella).
Mainly it is necessary to investigate the factors that influence the change of orientation of the main characters. You can affirmatively say that the basis for the change in the mood of the characters is the class division, especially if you take the different regions of a particular country. This is the main thesis of this paper, but do not forget that the consequential events occurring during the travel do shape characters’ life.
"Road Movie" is a genre of films and travel movies, the characters of which are permanently on the road. Often in the form of the "road movies" there are films with a distinct genre affiliation (comedy, western), but sometimes the "road movie" is distinguished by film critics as an independent genre (Bayman & Pinazza, 253). Structurally, the "road movie" is divided into a series of episodes, in each of which the main character or the characters have to overcome a particular challenge. An integral part of the journey is the movement of the landscape, a short interaction with people, places and things(Bayman & Pinazza, 254). Destination is not important and is often determined arbitrarily. Eternal journey is seen as the search for one’s place in the world. Naturally, this quest will never end – to end the way, the characters do not have enough time, space or faith. Due to the diverse philosophical issues behind the theme of the road, some directors prefer to work almost exclusively in the genre of "road movie" (Bayman & Pinazza, 255). Two films that were chosen to analyze are filmed exclusively in the genre.
The first is the movie, shot by the director Walter Salles. Not by chance in the picture title «Diarios de motocicleta», there is no name of Che Guevara. The film is not yet about him, but about a young idealist Ernesto Rafael Guevara Lynch de la Serna, a medical student, a reliable friend and an asthmatic, who is an enthusiastic of sports. The main character performs here long before he became the ideological partner of the Castro brothers, the hero of the Cuban revolution and the face of a million T-shirts. Together with a friend, Alberto, he embarks on a journey on an old motorcycle, intending to overcome the path length of more than eight thousand kilometers.
The genius of this film lies in Walter Salles himself. Films that he shoots touched to the core, while remaining in the memory for a long time, if not forever. Che Guevara, as he is known to modern youth, is not like himself. In fact, he was the hero of a romantic-twentieth century, who tried to save his country from a dictatorial oppression. But this film is not about the war, and it is good. It is about the same person as the rest of us, who went on a long journey with his best friend, young, shy, cheerful, brave, honest and sincere boy, who is on the verge of his spiritual and moral maturity. This is a time in life, when everything has meaning – every gesture, every word, every kilometer traveled, and each stop, when there are no unimportant things. Ahead and behind, in the west and in the east – the people are everywhere. Someone has a tumor growing on his neck, and he does not want to believe in it, someone writes a novel that will never be published, and the other dedicated his life to treat the incurable. And in the midst of all this, there is a boy, gasping from asthmatic attacks and the realization that the indigenous peoples of Latin America are close to extinction. Boy, who realized that the sick person is not ready to strike himself out of life, as a healthy society demanded from him. This boy knows that his family needs him, his mother (whom he wrote the letter to and misses during his journey), but he throws himself into the dark river, because on the other side are those who want to share his joy.
Who was Che Guevara, known to many? Only few know how Ernesto grew as how he was spending time, what events occurred in his life and how they influenced him. One of such large and significant ones, was a trip to South America on a motorcycle with a childhood friend Alberto Granado, as the film shows. The travel is not showing Ernesto Che Guevara in action, in the fight, it is just the beginning, as the formation of his personality, the development of his character. After all, what he saw could not inspire: against the background of calm and supposedly peaceful existence, there is a division of people on the grounds and extent of wealth, and the injustice, raised on this background, heavy survival of some and the carefree existence of other, oppression of indigenous peoples of the landlords, etc. the farther Ernesto was moving with his friend, the more he accumulated resentment, the desire to change the world and to overcome injustice.
This film shows the beginning of his great action by striking examples: Ernesto gives all the money to someone who lost shelter of the family, swims across the river, being asthmatic, to celebrate his birthday with the lepers, living on the other side. All of that is good, but a little in the context of such a person as Ernesto Che Guevara, whose name is known all over the world. Gael García Bernal did a fine job with the role of a young Ernesto, a shy young man with the nascent principles and the will, spirit, who was inspired after seeing the injustice. Maybe it was true, but the actions, at least, most of the ones demonstrated in the film, are too simple and ordinary, natural to good people, and, in general, could be taken by someone else. And it is not enough, in my opinion, there is a lack of the spirit of "incipient lumps", "portrait in a beret", more real and meaningful actions, greater depth and drama.
Che Guevara watches very serious social inequalities in various countries of Latin America, he is imbued with this problem. While in his native Argentina, he watched it among the youth, but crossing the borders of other countries, visiting Peru and Chile, he saw the same thing, a huge gap in the social development of the population. It gave him a spirit of the revolution, and the main thing is that he has experienced every country on himself and over the years has become to associate himself with the whole Latin America and to feel a citizen of each of these countries.
Spectator is permeated with the whole story, going through the establishment of Ernesto with him because of natural landscapes, from the blooming meadows to the blue mountain ranges, from the rivers and lakes to the snowy slopes, various beautiful countries, crossed by Ernesto: Argentina, Chile, Peru and other. And yet, the general spirit of road movie, the spirit of traveling with a thirst for discovery, to know the unknown, transfers you there and gets you along with the characters on a motorcycle, plunge into their way of life and experience with them, of, perhaps, the same events.
As for the part of the movie, one cannot but pay tribute to its realism: the painting of the people of God, a depressing situation of the Indians, the relationship between doctors and patients, between friends, Ernesto and Alberto. Those are suffering from the devastation and hunger, people get sometimes homeless in their native land, wealthy, limited in scope because of the life in the wilderness and the sick, separated from civilization, a river full of crocodiles – this is not what a young doctor expects to see in the journey. In short, everything is shown with naked and even frightening certainty. And this way of life and way of thinking has had such a major impact on a young student that it forced him to think not only about the life of injustice, but also about how you can avoid this injustice.
As with any road movie, there is a hint of adventure, a sense of absolute freedom, and all sorts of funny misfortunes into which the characters tend to get in, while being in the vast land of others. However, two factors, poor preparation and the bitterness of what he saw, made from the expedition and chasing women's skirts an almost tragic drama with a change of priorities as a result. It will take many more years before Che finally decides to lead the people, but everything started with this trip. Travel really changed Che Guevara, he returned not the Ernesto, he came back a different person. It sharpened the sense of justice, and it caused him to turn into the revolutionary struggle, he felt himself not just a Argentine, but a citizen of the Latin America as a whole.
The film «Sin dejar huella» is also a representative of the genre of road movie. Here there is the same structure of the film and the characters who change their outlook in the course of travel. In «Sin dejar huella», travelling gets forcible as the main character is a single mother of two children: Juan, 6 years old, and the child, who is less than one year. Aurelia runs away from her boyfriend, stealing money, that Saul earned spinning in drug trafficking. She leaves her son in the care of older sister and ship all their belongings in the truck. She turns out to be one-on-one with a child, looking for some work in hotels. She sees this as a better future for themselves and their children. Apparently, her mother's obligation prevailed, and she was not going to keep the baby, but she did not even know that her boyfriend would begin to look for her with his cousin, drug dealer to return the money as well as that the whole gang of drug dealers was sent to the chase her. Another woman, Ana, is a kind of an international dealer of counterfeit Mexican pre-Hispanic Mayan-Aztec treasure, the so-called Bamba. She is pursued by corrupt police.
It was under these circumstances that these women travel through the roads of Mexico from Ciudad Juarez to Cancun. Suddenly they realize that a mysterious red car follows them everywhere. They are in a panic, trying to hide in small towns, to throw off the tail of his pursuers. In pursuit of traveling to Mexico, they learn about the world and themselves. They begin to trust each other, but most importantly, they were able to recognize who they are in reality. In emergency situations, overcoming a huge number of kilometers they found themselves. They could find themselves in the Mexican sun roads.
This film, in addition to the elements of gender conflict, is considering the class factors and the formation of nationalist overtones in the genre of road movie. The film tries to overcome masculinization, appeared in the genre in the early 90s (Bayman & Pinazza, 255). In the case of the picture by Maria Novaro, the counter role of Marilou, which is hidden in the multiple identities to outwit the law, because she was born in Mexico, but grew up in Spain, with higher education, multilingual, speaker of the Mayan language, Catalan and English, rushes to the scene to destroy any stereotypes about monolinguistic concept of traditional Mexican identity. This cosmopolitan image is an opposite to Aurelia, who in the alleged picture is representing a stereotypical Mexican woman, whose character never finished high school, and who serves as a worker in the assembly shop, a single mother of John and Billy, caught up in a failed relationship with a drug dealer. But what is seen in the end, the film promotes the fight against class distinctions. Class differences were eliminated due to one, but a very long journey together. Although the class is not the similarity of the two female characters, they were able to become friends. The way to combine the two layers of the population, belonging to different classes.
Thus, unlike the film about a journey on a motorcycle, here there is a contrast in social inequality on the example of two girls. That is, in this film there is a direct clash of social differences, which allows you to show the difference more clearly and specifically as well as basic features that it fueled.
The film received fairly low marks critics. Such low scores were put to the film because the story is progressing very slowly, too slowly. Although it should be a dynamic film, with a constant change of scenery and the scene, the film develops very slowly. However, it should be noted that films about traveling women have raised social and many other aspects of modern patriarchal society. These are concerns and issues such as violence against women, their diseases, sexually transmitted, rape, suicide, questioning of family relationships, neglect, discrimination against single mothers and many others (Wilson 93).
This film is somewhat different from «Diarios de motocicleta» for several reasons. Firstly, there is a single mother, sent to the forced journey. It is a conscious choice, but it is made in view of complex circumstances. Secondly, it is women's road movie, which is a rarity in modern cinema. Thirdly, questions, raised by the film, touch the personality, as in the story of young Che Guevara, but here everything is considered through the prism of women's views on family life and the importance of the soulmate for women in general.
Despite some differences, in both films, there is a trip to the country, or a trip to his native continent (as is the case with Che Guevara) changes people. For better or worse, it is hard to say, everyone has his own destiny. As for the characters of films, here of course it is obvious that they recognized themselves and begin knowing best themselves. They woke up the feelings that have been frozen. They were able to collect all their thoughts together and understand what kind of people they are, that they have a soul and what they want to aspire. If in the case of a single mother all went pretty corny, then a trip of Che Guevara, as a result, changed not only himself, but also the history of Latin America in general and Cuba in particular (Ching 239).
Any society is structured on a national, social, class, demographic, geographic, and other criteria. In these two films, the social structure determines the social differences between people, that is the difference, generated by social factors: the division of labor, way of life, social roles performed by certain social groups. In every corner of Mexico, which Aurelia would have driven in as well as in every country visited by a young Ernesto, they had the same bundle. Before the eyes of Ernesto goes through a string of scenes, images, events. In the film, there is a comparison of ancient and modern Indian city of Peru, which is not in favor of the latter (Ching 267). The glaring injustice of the local population actually descends on to the slave state, which causes a storm of emotions at the viewer’s perceprion, because this injustice is generated by social policy.
As a result, it is worth saying that the class heterogeneity in different countries is visible to the naked eye. In each country, there are similar differences in population. In the case of the characters in the films, a trip helped persuade them that people are suffering from such a bundle, and they need to do something. In these journeys, people face not only social injustice, but also have to to recognize that this injustice begins with everyone of them, as in the case of Aurelia from the movie «Sin dejar huella».
Works cited
Bayman, Louis, and Natália Pinazza. "Road Movie." Brazil. Directory of World Cinema. Vol. 21. Intellect Ltd, 2014. 253-56.
Ching, Erik. Reframing Latin America. Austin: University of Texas Press, December 2007. 237-267.
Diarios De Motocicleta. Brazil: Walter Salles, 2004. DVD.
Sin Dejar Huella. Mexico: María Novaro, 2000. DVD.
Wilson, James. The NAFTA Spectacle: Envisioning Borders, Migrants and the U.S.-Mexico Neoliberal Relation in Visual Culture. The University of Arizona, 2013. 171-239. PDF.
