|
Steven Soderbergh’s “Che”
Reviewed by Ron Holloway
(from the 2008 Festival de Cannes; entry in official competition)
Benicio del Toro as the savvy Mexican drug-detective kept Steven Soderbergh's Traffic (2000) moving at such a rapid pace that the film's two-hours-plus length flew by in a flash.
Benicio del Toro as Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna in Soderbergh's Che clobbered along at such a snail's pace that the film's four-and-a-half-hour running time seemed twice as long.
As Cannes competition screenings go, this one will go down in history. A double-feature marathon of this calibre is a rarity in the festival's 61-year history. To accommodate the overflow crowd, a backup screening was arranged 15 minutes later in the roomy Salle Bazin.
Given the theme and circumstances, one would expect that Che, the "hottest ticket" in Cannes, would enchant rather than baffle. Not so.
Instead, some critics in the Salle Debussy at the Palais des Festivals sighed in visible relief when the intermission came - between Part 1: The Argentine, an account of Che's Cuban days as a fighting revolutionary (1956-59), and Part 2: Guerrilla, the inside story of his Bolivian debacle (1966-67).
The break in the biopic offered an opportunity to run to the foyer. There, in a "Che" paper-bag, awaited a sandwich and candy bar for the hungry and needy. |
"I was drawn to Che as a subject for a movie (or two) not only because his life reads like an adventure story, but because I am fascinated by the technical challenges that go along with implementing any large-scale political idea," states Steven Soderbergh in the pressbook.
And adds: "I wanted to detail the mental and physical demands these two campaigns required, and illustrate the process by which a man born with an unshakable will discovers his own ability to inspire and lead others."
Ten years in the making, Che went through several changes before a finished print was rushed from the lab just in time for the Cannes screening. More changes are said to be in the offing before the film goes into release.
The subject of much speculation - mostly whether the film would be accepted at Cannes as two films instead of a composite one - Che also had as many authors and sources as it has versions and interpretations.
Since one of these sources was the recently declassified files of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), more details are now known about Che's visit to New York to speak before the United Nations, a turbulent event on December 11, 1964, that's chronicled in the film via a reconstruction of that famous TV interview with journalist Lisa Howard.
Moreover, the same CIA files also contain significant new information on Che's death in the Bolivian mountains - particularly in regard to how the CIA had supported the Bolivian military during the pursuit of Che's small guerrilla band. The CIA, as a declared foe of the Cuban government, was hardly willing to see the Castro revolution carried beyond Cuba's borders to other countries in Latin America.
Perhaps when Steven Soderbergh's Che goes into release, the film might negate many of the myths and legends slapped onto the historical Ernesto Guevara. The asthmatic Argentine doctor was much more than just a charismatic fighter in Castro's revolution. For the record, Che was also a diplomat, a writer, a diarist, an intellectual, an orator, a Marxist theorist and more. Also, as a key figure in the government's pro-Soviet faction after Castro's rise to power, he favored a hardline position over a democratically oriented socialist Cuba. Indeed, as hinted in Soderbergh's Che, Guevara was not above firing squads and forced labor camps to reach the ultimate goals of the revolution.
History is one thing, legend another. |
After Guevara's death in 1967, it didn't take long before symbols of the "Che myth" popped up on T-shirts, posters, and movie screens.
Just two years after his death, in Richard Fleischer's Che! (USA, 1969), with Omar Sharif as Che and Jack Palance as Fidel Castro, Guevara was depicted in a run-of-the-mill actioner as a murderous revolutionary as well as a revolutionary leader. In other words, both sides of the same coin.
By contrast, in Walter Salles's Diarios de motocicleta (Motorcycle Diaries) (2004), an international coproduction with Gael Garcia Bernal as Che, Guevara is depicted as an idealistic young doctor from the Argentinean middle-class confronted with the poverty and infirmities of the disadvantaged. An adventure story, for the most part.
Some insights into Che's role in the Cuban revolution were given in Oliver Stone's documentary Comandante (2003), in which Castro describes in bits and pieces his relationship to Guevara during the revolution. It was apparently Castro who had suggested Bolivia to Guevara after the latter's disappointing mission to the Congo.
Arguably, the best documentary on the "martyrdom" of Che Guevara, one that raises as many questions on his death as it gives answers, is Erik Gandini and Tarik Saleh's Sacrificio (Sweden, 2001).
In Sacrificio, the story of who betrayed Che Guevara, the film deals with Che's martyrdom as reexamined once again via an interview with Ciro Bustos, the key Argentinean eyewitness and Che comrade, who is now living in retirement in Uppsala. The filmmakers also interviewed Régis Debray, the French journalist and friend of Fidel Castro, who had received a tip from Castro as to where to find the revolutionary leader in his Bolivian underground, members of the Bolivian military, who had captured Guevara and wanted to tell their side of the story.
Since both Ciro Bustos and Régis Debray have been accused in the past of having betrayed Che from prison shortly after their arrest by the Bolivian police in 1967, the question is still unresolved as to who was, in fact, the one who confirmed Che's presence and whereabouts. That scene, although depicted in Soderbergh's Che, doesn't go much further beyond the initial arrest of the Bustos and Debray. Much as in a fiction thriller, Erik Gandini first elicits from Bustos his account of Che's last days, then goes to Normandy with his portfolio of eyewitness accounts to confront Debray - who, in the end, refuses to even to address the matter.
Among the many backers of Steven Soderbergh's Che is actor Benicio del Toro, who plays Che and is listed as a producer and an associate on the project from the very beginning. Another is consultant Jon Lee Anderson, who writes for New Yorker and authored a massive 800-page book on Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life (published in 1997). Above all, there is producer Laura Bickford, whose salient comments on the film's second half are a key to understanding both the project and the finished film.
"We spent three years researching what eventually became Che - Part 2. The original idea was that we would explore one part of Che's life in great detail. What we found was that by just doing Part 2, you didn't understand the context in which he made the decision to go to Bolivia. Then, when we decided to add Cuba and New York and began working on the structure, it just kept getting bigger and bigger." She also states in the film's pressbook that "Part 2 is more of a thriller, while Part 1 is more of an action film with big battle scenes."
Its screening to the press at Cannes without introductory or closing credits gives us reason enough to believe that Che, unfortunately, is still a work in progress. Ripe for a two-part telefeature at best. Cannes jury awarded Best Performance for an Actor to Benicio Del Toro for his performance in Che.
Photos courtesy of the filmmaker.
Some links courtesy of Internet Movie Database. |
|
|
