I liked the scenery (including Gael Garc ía Bernal in that category) more than the story/stories in Brazilian director Walter Salles's (2004) adaptation of Ernesto Guevera's Motorcycle Diaries. The diaries are a log of a 1952 motorcycle trip from Buenos Aires, across the Andes, up the west side of South America, and over to Caracas taken by the medical student who became "Che" in part by seeing exploitation along the way and practicing medicine in a leprosareum. (Ernesto was accompanying the considerably more self-confident womanizer Alberto Granado.) The music that Argentine composer/guitarist Gustavo Santaollala composed for Ernesto leaving the leprosarieum (Partida Del Leprosario, track 20) is very wistful solo guitar above a note that is held in strings (that is, there is a note that seems just to be there rather than being played; at the end of the track is returns and throbs a bit).

It is followed by a most hauntingly beautiful track, "De Usuahia A La Quiaca" (recycled from Santallalo's first solo album, "Ronroco"), which has a minor-key melody from a guitar sounding like a zither above another maintaining the rhythm, and eventually joined by a flute (not an Andean wooden one), which has the last word (sound). It seems to me how the disc should end--so it is how I arranged it on my own version.

My other favorite track Is "Jard ín" (Garden, track 8), a guitar line with string accompaniment that is taken over by a flute. It sounds like a flute takes over the guitar melody, but may well still be guitar. It is simple, but haunting.

In general, the melodies are simple and repetitious with Santaollala's guitar rarely playing chords. There are some rhythm-driving electrical guitars on other less wistful tracks, such as "La Partida" (The Parting, track 9), so the soundtrack is not just 47 and a half minutes of minimalist, wistful guitar plucking with subsidiary flute and strings.

It doesn't seem to be going anywhere in particular. The two young Argentine men had no particular destination either, though the journey--and particularly the time they spent at the leprosareum--transformed them.

The guitar on the road music is interrupted by three vocal performances, too: the brassy (4) "Chipi, Chipi" with an accordion accompanying Mar ía Esther Zamora, an insinuating upbeat number in which the young Chileans, who have been mistaken for film directors, dance with the locals, (14) Que Rico El Mambo" (How Rich the Mambo][is] ) another upbeat and more percussive and brassy piece performed by Damasco Perez Prado with some chanting of the title line in the middle, and (23.) "Al Otro Lado Del Rio" (To the other side of the river) by Jorge Drexler, a gentle ballad heavy on cellos and not lacking a beat that is pleasant enough, but should not IMO have the last word (conclude the disc).

The soundtrack is generally relaxing, lullingly repetitious. The songs interrupt drifting off with the sounds, a minus for using the disc as recorded as background music, though the final ballad is quite lulling. For listening (something people on occasion do with recordings), the vocal numbers provide variety (so that the listener does not drift away).

There is little on the disc similar to the "Argentine rock" that Santaollala championed, or the Cafe Tacubya discs he produced, except to some degree the electric guitar on track 17, "Cabalgando," though it sounds more like music for a television spy program of the 1960s. The ominous (12) "La Salida De Lima" (Leaving Lima) has electric guitars and is more like Santaollala's scores for "21 Grams" and Amores Perros. As is the percussive 19th track "El Cruce" (the crossing). Most of the rest are more in the plaintive meditative spirit of the instrumental music he wrote for Brokeback Mountain.

© 2006, Stephen O. Murray

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The complete track list:
1. Apertura
2. Lago Frias
3. Chichina
4. Chipi Chipi
5. Monta ña
6. Sendero
7. Procesion
8. Jard ín
9. La Partida
10. La Muerte De La Poderosa
11. Lima
12. La Salida De Lima
13. Zambita
14. Que Rico El Mambo
15. Circulo En El Rio
16. Amazonas
17. Cabalgando
18. Leyendo En El Hospital
19. El Cruce
20. Partida Del Leprosario
21. De Usuahia A La Quiaca
22. Revolucion Caliente
23. Al Otro Lado Del Rio

(three of these run a minute or less, eight more less than two minutes, the whole disc runs 47.5 minutes).

I have written briefly about Santaollala's Oscar-winning Brokeback Mountain score and more fully about his score for "21 Grams".




Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Going to Sleep