Based on the diaries that he kept, the film is the story of a motorcycle trip that the 23-year-old future revolutionary Che Guevara (Gael Garcia Bernal) made across the South American continent between 1951 and 1952. Guevara is training to be a doctor; and he travels with his friend Alberto Granado (Rodrigo De la Serna), a biochemist, on an ailing 500cc Norton motorcycle, which they name ‘La Poderosa’ (The Powerful One).
Che and Alberto set off from Argentina and cross into Chile and Peru in order to take up their medical residency at a leper colony. Along the way, and especially at the colony, Che and Alberto are exposed to the plight of the poor, vulnerable and suffering. This proves to be formative for Che Guevara, already a young radical.
This is a story of two young men who set out to explore the world, and who end up finding that the world is exploring them, presenting them with questions of poverty and suffering, and asking them to choose the nature of their response. It is the extreme nature of Che’s response that will come to dominate his entire life. And thus the slogan of the film is, “Let the world change you . . . and you can change the world.”
This is a touching story of real friendship beautifully told.
