Che The Movie, Exquisitely Detailed: It's Not Just One Film, It's Two, Though a Little Bit Overdone

It's not quite out yet and when it is you'll have to pay two admissions to see the four and a half hour extravaganza of Che Guevara's revolutionary struggles, which I sat through last night with a preview audience.

Based on two literary works by Ernesto Che Guevara, Che Part One, with a screenplay by Peter Buchman, and Che Part Two's script by Buchman and Benjamin A. Van Der Veen are filled to the brim with the tales of two revolutions. The first derived from Guevara's Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War takes us on a journey of Guevara's involvement with Fidel Castro from the mid-fifties when they met in Mexico to the armed struggle to liberate Cuba from dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959. The second comes from Guevara's The Bolivian Diary after he left Cuba to foment rebellion in Africa and finally Bolivia.

To the writers' credit, the biopics deliver a lot of history without overwhelming us with a bunch of speeches that encapsulate Guevara's life. This was the main criticism I found in Milk, wherein it seemed almost every word out of his mouth was another platitude related to the slain San Francisco Supervisor's life cause. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of dogma emitted in Che, but it's interspersed more effectively with the media coverage of the time. It is spoon-fed in a more credible manner and we believe it as dialogue rather than sound bites.

Che Part One is told in flashback as the late ABC TV Reporter Lisa Howard, played by Julia Ormond, interviews Guevara, who is in New York City to address the United Nations. Throughout the exchange we are shown in cutaways how the Cuban cause progressed from preliminary conversations to the heavy fighting in the wooded terrain of Cuba.

The film is directed and photographed by Steven Soderbergh in a sweeping manner, with taut stirring music by Alberto Iglesias, beautifully underplaying Soderbergh's cinematography achievements (which are credited to Peter Andrews his longtime alias). The action moves forth in a very realistic manner, sometimes plodding along as there's a bit too much unnecessary depiction of the battle sequences. We meet different people en route and, while factually correct, most are not known to the vast public and it might have been wise to cut down on the number of skirmishes in which the rebels were engaged.

Benicio Del Toro is magnetic and haunting as Che, but he has the difficult task of communicating to us through subtitles, as most of the film is told in Spanish. It lends an authentic ring to the story, but distracts our attention somewhat in the manner of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. If a film is truly a foreign film it's one thing, but this is a huge motion picture starring an American actor and directed by an American, and there's no reason why this story couldn't have been told in English. Other important films this year set in foreign locales have been, such as The Reader and Defiance, which I've earlier reviewed, not to mention classics like Spartacus and Judgment at Nuremberg. I'm not saying it's a huge drawback, but it slows down the action and you sometimes miss things when you're constantly bobbing your head trying to see what the players are saying.

Che Part Two, essentially by the same team, follows Che several years later after he left Cuba under a mysterious cloud and engaged in revolutionary activities elsewhere. We pick him up entering Bolivia under an assumed name with a phony passport and watch him motivate at first unwilling Bolivian nationals to accept a foreigner's command and take on an oppressive dictatorship.

As the films will be released separately it might be unfair to judge them having sat through both of them right after one another. Those who actually attend might just see one and, in any case, won't be burdened with the sameness of the two in rapid succession as I was.

However, it brought to bear the likeness inherent. On the one hand was my fascination with what was going on in the political times and the depths to which the filmmakers brought it to the screen. On the other I looked at my watch having seen similar scenes of battle one after the other. Plus, the lack of suspense for those who are familiar with the historical events made me pine for something I didn't know. Perhaps some more personal stories or interaction with Guevara's family, from which he was separated for such long periods.

As a dramatization of important events, the complexity and breadth of parts one and two of Che are more significant than Milk or Frost/Nixon. However, the simplicity of the latter two are ultimately more satisfying as they engage us much more greatly on an emotional level.

For this reason I'm not sure either segment of Che will find a huge audience, but for those who are interested in this part of recent world history and how it affected our nation, not to mention the larger than life charisma of Che Guevara, there is much that will please.

Michael Russnow's website is www.ramproductionsinternational.com.

Comments

[davidsmith]

I wonder where Huber Matos is at in the movie? He was just as big as Che and
Fidel and Raul and Celia and Camilo (not Camillo as the movie has it) in
overthrowing Batista. Oh, that's right! When Huber saw that Fidel was leaning towards
being a commie, he resigned, got thrown in jail, and treated a lot worse than those
in Guantanamo. Of course Che was against this, he wanted him killed in El Paredon,
just for having a different view.

read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huber_Matos

[Zapata]

"At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality... We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force." ---- CHE GUEVARA

El Che Vive

[davidsmith]

Che reminds me of al Zawahari...he was a doctor and there was not a government that he didn't want to topple using terrorism. Yes, bombing public buses with civilians, the infamous firing squads of El Paredon (or the big wall).
Che was not smart as Fidel, which was able to swiftly remove those that helped him get to power and thus remove competition. Huber Matos was thrown in jail, Camilo Cienfuegos mysteriously die in a plane crash, and Che was sent to Bolivia to die like a pig trying to topple their government with no resources.
By no means governments in South and Central America are worthy of praise. But the lefty government as those of Fidel want to be in power forever, and make their siblings richer than God and maintain power. Now we have Raul. And Chavez is doing the same. He already lost a referendum that would allowe him to stay in power indefinitely, so he is trying it again. And of course his brother is governor in one of Venezuela's provinces. And he is sending moneys to his cronies just in case he cannot stay in power. It's sad, but these governments go to govern penniless and are worth tens of millions if they can be removed from power. Venezuela just purchased 5 billion in weaponry from the Soviets, as if they were in war, while their people don't have to eat.
Che--thanks but no thanks.

[Terry Malone]

This is a very funny view of the world, David. You certainly do see that there are terrorists in the world, even ones that were doctors like Che, but I don't see what that has to do with Che's cause. Maybe we can just blacklist all doctors. Or all Latin Americans!
As for Camilo and Che being put to death, that is highly skeptical, and I don't think either of us, nor most people, have the resourses to draw ad hoc conclusions about such things. One thing is known though, and that is that Che WANTED to go to Bolivia and was actually asked to stay for many years by Fidel until the revolution ironed out many of it's most troubling problems. Remember that Che was not one man, but three. He was a top General of the Army, the Director of the Cuban Banks, and the Minister of Agriculture. Seeing how land reform and the economy were hot topics following a Communist revolution, it would have been unwise to lose him at all, let alone to send him to Bolivia "to die like a pig," if there is any special ways that pigs die.
Lastly, and most importantly, your awkward world view is displayed best as you critisize the "Lefties" that are "richer then God." Let's not forget that Batista was put in power by the right wing, and namely the USA, and raped the country dry.

[Terry Malone]

By all accounts the Cuban people are far better under Fidel then Batista. No more is the country the highly segregated and oppressed land where the soldiers marched through the rural areas killing and burning at will. No more is the average citizen underfed and illiterate. Fidel introduced free education and free health care to all people, and gave the poor families children an education. For every literate Cuban under Batista there is 3 Cuban DOCTORS under Fidel. Also, Cuba sends more doctors overseas to help with disaster relief then any other country, usually ten to twenty times as much as most Europian countrys and much more then USA's number of 0. He also builds hospitols and sends medical supplies for them to use. The amount of Cuban doctors in Africa alone is staggering, and is the only reason that real progress is being made in the backward and damaging medical condition of their tribal areas. Maybe that is why Fidel is a long- standing member of the UN's Human Rights Commitee. That is something you can't say about an American president. Not bad for an "evil dictator" under a 40 year trade embargo. If you want to talk about an evil man who uses his country as his own personal bank account, and murders hundreds of thousands in his quest to become "richer then God," maybe you should look at the recent Bush administration.

[liberalnfree]

Idolatry of this totalitarian ideologue is despicable.

[Zapata]

You're right ... Che should have organized a bus boycott or lunch sit in, that would have convinced the Dictator Batista who had already killed 20,000 Cubans and the Mafia which ran the island to give up their de facto slave plantations peacefully.

The Chutzpah of Che to want to free Cuba from being an American pleasure palace and gambling hangout for Frank Sinatra & Co. while 70 % of the population remained illiterate.

We should all abhor anyone from attempting to remove Uncle Sam's boot from their throat. I even heard that U.$. Backed Contra death squads gave out lollipops to their Latin American victim"s families. Don't they realize we are there to bring them "freedom" (while merely borrowing their resources) ... I mean look at how well Iraq is working out. :o)

[Sarcasm Off]

[liberalnfree]

"Many of the early leaders of the Cuban Revolution favored a democratic or democratic-socialist direction for the new Cuba. But Che was a mainstay of the hardline pro-Soviet faction, and his faction won. Che presided over the Cuban Revolution's first firing squads. He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system"the system that was eventually employed to incarcerate gays, dissidents, and AIDS victims."
http://www.slate.com/id/2107100/

[TribunusPlebis]

In fact Che was either ignorant or didn't care to learn about previously successful nonviolent movements that had dislodged dictatorships and colonial occupiers throughout the world. For example, in Latin America, in 1944 in El Salvador a coalition of students, doctors, merchants and ordinary working people brought down a bloodthirsty military dictator in less than 30 days with a nationwide general strike. Boycotts, strikes and civil disobedience had been used in Central and South America to force elections and promote the rights of working people since the early 1900s. Since Che's time, nonviolent action vitiated the Argentine junta's legitimacy in the late 1970s, and a nationwide nonviolent coalition brought down Pinochet in Chile in 1988-90. The reality is that Fidel and Che were in love with the over-romanticized image of violent revolutionaries that Lenin systematically marketed since he rose to prominence 60 years earlier. The famous poster of Che has probably done more to perpetuate the myth that violent revolutions are the only path to liberation than any other piece of 20th century propaganda. This movie only reinforces the myth. It represents the Hollywoodization of Leninist nonsense.

[HannibalV]

For the record, "Peter Andrews" is the pseudonym Soderbergh uses when he's serving as his own cinematographer.

[Michael Russnow - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks. I honestly wasn't aware and have since updated the review to reflect your kind informative input.

[Zapata]

TRAILER

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808403435/video/10924831/


"Che's life is an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom. We will always honor his memory." --- Nelson Mandela

"Che is not only an intellectual, he was the most complete human being of our time " our era"s most perfect man." --- Jean Paul Sartre


All the info you could want on these amazing and beautiful movies ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_(film)


"We predict that Guevara will be eulogized as the model revolutionary who met a heroic death." --- October 1967, Bureau of Intelligence and Research report - for US Secretary of State Dean Rusk

[Wilsonfisk89]

Interesting, looking forward to it.
Memories of Underdevelopment comes to mind as a unique documentary that deals w. much of this subject matter... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memories_of_Underdevelopment