Che (Soderbergh, 2008)

[madali]

Che (Soderbergh, 2008)
IMDB Link
IMDB Link

Even though released as two parts, I watched it as one showing, and I think it is essential that viewers watch it like that. It IS one movie, and watching only one part of it will not give you the full impact of the movie.

The first part deals with Che Guevara’s role in helping Fidel Castro bringing a revolution to Cuba. The second part deals with his role in Bolivia.

Che’s role in Cuba was a resounding success, and his time in Bolivia was the exact opposite, and this is what makes watching both parts at the same time so fascinating. The movie is filmed in a realistic, direct manner, without trying to over-dramatize everything. We do not get scenes of Che opening up to a girl (so we the audience get a deeper glimpse into his character) nor do we get to attach ourselves to his comrades, to make us feeling more devastated when they die. Initially, I thought this was a faulty of the movie, but now I realize how essential it was. We did not have to be emotionally invested by the character’s personalities, but by the struggle. The movie is not as much about Che, as it is about guerrilla warfare and about armed struggle.

The first part has a lot of satisfying and thrilling action scenes, specially the scene where the guerrilla’s move from block to block in a city, trying to capture it, as they exchange fires with the army.

But Part 2 is my favorite. After the victory in Cuba, Part 2 seems to strip away all glory from guerrilla warfare, and shows us how grueling it can be. We have scenes after scenes of the group looking tired and hungry, and being more discouraged by the day. The captains show as the days passing by, and as the numbers go from a few days to days in their hundreds, we can almost feel the desperation and struggle of the people involved. And when they gun fires are exchanged, it starts suddenly and finishes fast. One must feel how hard it is to go through endless days of being hungry and overworked and suddenly one day, get shot at, and die. Where is romanticism in that? Who can put that in a poem? How can you fit that in a t-shirt?

Because of the success of the struggle in the first part, the latter two hours makes it a despairing watch.

5/5

[X.]

Good points. I liked the second part, Guerilla, more for the same reasons you did. If Argentine was about the glory of Che and his revolution, Guerilla is about the fall and pathetic irrelevance of the same ideology.  Che is so far the best film at DIFF, after the devastatingly powerful The Wrestler.

[fizz]

The Cuban revolutionary leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara was many things to many people. To some (especially those from third world countries) he was an effective and fierce opponent of America’s hypocritical imperialism while for others he was nothing more than a criminal who masterminded violent campaigns to overthrow governments. Whatever your opinion of the man might be, Steven Soderberg’s film, a four and a half hour magnum opus feels truly epic in scope and function. It is a rare cinematic experience because it presents both points of view in two equal halves that complement each other.

The first of the two films is an engaging, highly compelling mixture of pseudo-docudrama, war movie and brisk biopic. We get no scenes of the young Ernesto (for that you would have to see the excellent “Motorcycle Diaries”) and the film dives straight into the period during the mid 50’s when Che and long time ally Fidel Castro charted their plans to rid Cuba of then president Batista. What follows is a detailed, multi-year campaign showing how Che and his rag tag crew of outsiders formed a large scale movement that gained the popularity of the local population. Throughout all this we see numerous times why Ernesto was so influential. Benicio Del Toro he makes the character courageous, inspiring and fearless. Through voice over narration, which are actually the parts of the film that intercut the campaign missions to an interview that Che gave while in New York during 1964, we are almost educated in the ideology of the man’s thoughts and beliefs. If the war scenes provide a frighteningly discerning look at guerilla warfare (in exceptionally crafty scenes of battle), the quieter moments between these battles shed more light into how one man became so influential.

The second film, appropriately called Guerilla is a markedly different film in tone and approach to the character. While the first film ended leaving me thoroughly engaged thinking that the film honoured, almost glorified the work of Che Guevara, the second film becomes almost its anti-thesis. The Bolivia campaign, held half a decade after Che’s success in Cuba, was never able to repeat the successes of Cuba. There were many reasons for this and the film built its case well. Che was considered an outsider, not a native, and thus his strongly held belief that a dissatisfied junta could overpower a corrupt government in bed with US came across almost as arm twisting. Added to this is the unforgiving Bolivian jungle, but also the fact that with help from the US, Che’s opponents were better prepared this time. There was glint of madness in Del Toro’s portrayal of Che in this, the second part, especially when we see him and his men take food from poor farmers promising them a better life. Convinced of their own right, how different were they from modern day terrorists? This objectivity is what made this second film become almost a flip perspective.

If there are two sides to every story, it is almost certain that those who watch Che as two separate films will miss out on the completeness that a back to back watch provides. The achievement of director Soderbergh is monumental not only because of how difficult it must have been to show the same man from different angles (in victory and defeat) but also because the entire film is in Spanish and feels rigidly authentic. As far as pure, visceral cinematic experiences go, it doesn’t getter better than Che.

Rating: 5/5

[kaytee]

So far best of the festival, a throughly engaging film which would have fallen flat if not for Benicio Del Toro. He makes the role of Che his and gives such an authentic performance that it makes you wonder if not him who else could have pulled this off and honestly I can't think of anyone else.
Soderberg has clearly vested time and lots of efforts on the movie because it looks real and natural to the T. Not giving this masterpiece a 5/5 would be a sin.
 

[madali]

You are right, Kaytee, I changed mine to 5/5. It would be a sin to give it less.

[shariqq]

Che Guevara. The man behind Fidel Castro who lead the succesful revolutionary war in Cuba. The man who wrote *the* handbook on guerrilla warfare (called "Guerrilla Warfare"). The man who traveled the world over to help freedom-fighters. The face that is the world's most merchandised photograph, 40 years after his death. A biopic of Che Guevara is nothing less than a herculean task. An honest attempt at it alone is applaudable. But with a 4hr22min epical biopic that chronicles the two most important battles of his life (his rise and his downfall), Steven Soderbergh's Che becomes not just a great film, but a tour de force in film-making. Benico Del Toro delivers the performance of a lifetime as the Revolutionary in a casting choice that touches perfection.


The first part of Che, Argentine, depicts the battle of Santa Clara in Cuba along with intercut scenes of his address at the UN headquarters in New York as well as his early youth days from when he first met Fidel Castro. The less accomplished of the two parts, the focus on the Cuban revolution and black&white New York scenes do come across as self-aware, but by the end of Argentine - the actual battles in Santa Clara - the movie has risen to a level that sets it apart for greatness.


The greatness though, is achieved in the second part, Guerilla, where Che Guevara fights his last battle in Bolivia. This part works on a single time-line: Che fights out his last few months with a bunch of fighters in the jungles of Bolivia while the Bolivian national army (with assistance from the US Army) close in on them. The emotional investment and the achieved victory in Argentine only work to make Che's final fight to the end in Guerilla that much more sad. Soderbergh & Del Toro, with Che, have created a movie that is worthy of every bit of the legend that Che Guevara is.

Rating --> 4 of 5

[fizz]

This has film has been sadly, sadly overlooked by everyone and it is without a doubt one of the best I've seen. Ebert gives it a 3 and a half star rating in a well written review.

[X.]

Man, screw the award shows. Everyone at my film school is discussing Slumdog or Frost/Nixon or The Dark Knight, and these competent studio films are not worth mentioning in the same breath as many of the eclectic films we saw at the Dubai Film Festival.

As long as our group honors the films that matter in our collective Top 10, that is all that matters (to me).

[animatedude]

apparently, this is coming to cinemas later this month,can you guys comment on possible censorship on both parts?

[X.]

There is no nudity in any of the two parts, so that will be the least of your concerns. Che, in the Middle East, is considered a symbol of resistance against Western capitalistic and democratic ideals, so I do not believe there should be any censorship on a political basis.

[animatedude]

[fizz]

So its getting the Criterion treatment? Good..

Hope that isn't the cover

[kaytee]

If it is the full 4 hour movie only then would I actually buy the DVD. Yes you heard it, I will buy a DVD.

[fizz]

If it is the full 4 hour movie only then would I actually buy the DVD. Yes you heard it, I will buy a DVD.

Yes, I would too. Criterion doesn't come across as people milking their products so maybe this will be the 4 hour version packaged as one. Perhaps ak or animatedude can shed more light...

[animatedude]

Just wanted to share this interview I did to Soderbergh regarding "Che". It's in spanish (sorry!) but the video after the third paragraph has him talking in English (please, excuse MY English). Hope you enjoy it.

One tidbit that didn't make the video, the DVD release of "Che" is going to be handled by the Criterion Collection and he told me they have TONS of extra material for it.

He told me they would first release it in a rental movie-only version at Blockbuster, and then at the end of the year the Criterion Edition would come out. He said they had a bunch of research material, interviews, documentary footage, declassified documents and a "mountain" of scenes that didn't make the final cut.

i would assume it's going to be like all the international releases:Disc 1: The Argentine, Disc 2: Guerilla, Disc 3: extras,along with a booklet by some pretentious critic who suggests communism isn't really a bad thing..