A little bit of background. When I saw that movie in a local AMC theatre in 2007, I wasn't expecting much. Strangely, there were no previews before the movie, though I thought that maybe it was because I was late (the movie was presented after my work day). After 140 minutes, the running time that was on the ticket, the credits said "Part One", and oddly enough an announcement was made that part two would follow after the intermission. So, I watched over 280 minutes at the cinema at regular price...
Che part one and part two is a biopic of Ernesto "Che" Guevara by Steven Soderbergh starring Benicio Del Toro. Biopics are not for everybody, especially this one. First, this movie tends to have a slow pace, and second, it is shot with a certain emotional distance from the characters. This "coldness" helps keeping some form of objectivity over a script essentially based on Che's own memoirs, and as such biased.
The first part is essentially Che's involvement with the rebellion led by Castro in Cuba, culminating with Che leading the rebel group that took over the city of Santa Clara. It is intercut with some of his life years later as some kind of diplomatic representative and icon of the Cuban revolution, shot in black and while during interviews and his speech at the United Nations.
The second part is about his futile secret and unwanted battle in what is essentially a proxy war between Cuba and the USA in Bolivia. There are no "flash-forwards" this time as we are shown how he is losing both his ideological and guerilla battle.
What easily stand out in that movie is the completely uneven pace between the "calm before the storm" and the thrilling action sequences. All shots are done through a portable digital RED camera, yet they are absolutely beautiful and without the motion sickness of bad action scenes (the "shaky cam"). Also, Del Toro's performance is nothing short of spectacular. Finally, it manages to touch upon the controversy about Che without painting him as a hero or monster yet at the same time clearly showing the moral ambiguity (hazards?) of his actions. Of course many American critics simply blasted the movie because they felt it was too sympathetic with the character (it's still Che's own memoirs after all), but the movie still have sharp criticism of him in the second part that I'm sure offended his apologists.
Overall, this is a amazing movie by Soderbergh, though it's still not for everybody. If you can put politics on the side (or, like me, be somewhat indifferent about Cuban-American relations), you will be able to enjoy a realistic look and thrilling action of what happened with Che. Still can't understand why he's on all those T-shirts though.
Published on May 28, 2012 at 22:37 EDT
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