The Guevara characterized in Walter Salles’ seductive new film The Motorcycle Diaries is a far cry from the iconic figure, sporting beard and beret, found in so many dorm rooms and poetry lounges. This is Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (Gael García Bernal) in his mid-twenties, before he was Che. The film picks up Guevara’s life in 1951 as he embarks with his compatriot, Alberto Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna) on his travels—powered, initially, by the namesake motorcycle, of course—bound for the southern tip of South America. He is a far more accessible figure, and his journey radiates a certain lost-soul aura to which even a hardened capitalist could relate. (ZMS)
Raise Your Voice
Yes, you will sit amongst 8-12 year-old girls and painfully awkward older men who, surprisingly, come alone. Yes, her group of friends includes a sassy black girl, a goofy white guy and an ambiguously ethnic love interest. But Hilary Duff, star of Raise Your Voice, surprisingly sheds her Teen Disney roots, giving an uneven yet charming performance as Terri Fletcher, small-town girl whisked away from commonplace and complacency when she lands admission to the prestigious Bristol Hill School of Music in L.A. You’ve undoubtedly seen Raise Your Voice before: this film is formula-driven, from start to finish. But no matter how many times Duff clips her lines or awkwardly over-acts her most intense scenes, the film somehow recovers. Despite its reliance on ham-fisted elements to a garner a reaction, Raise Your Voice pulls off moments where palpable, genuine emotion pumps from the screen. (BJ)
September Tapes
Filmed entirely in Afghanistan, September Tapes offers compelling evidence that claims of success there have been thoroughly fictionalized. Inexplicably, however, director Christian Johnston chose to fictionalize his exposé. The tapes chronicle the efforts of filmmaker Don Larson (George Calil) and his translator, Wali Zarif (Wali Razaqui) to record and possibly join the hunt for Osama bin Laden. The foibles in the fiction prompt a host of questions that distract from the substantive reflection that the film would otherwise promote. Johnston aims to debunk the myths of the Afghani situation, but should have realized that original footage of a war zone’s unseen chaos speaks for itself. (DL)
—Happening was compiled by Marie E. Burks, Julie S. Greenberg, May Habib, Steven N. Jacobs, Bryant A. Jones, Emily M. Kaplan, Christopher A. Kukstis, Doug E. Lieb, Timothy J. McGinn, Alexandra B. Moss, David B. Rochelson, Zachary M. Seward, and Scoop A. Wasserstein.