Story of Revolution
CHE: Parts One and Two
I consider myself fortunate enough to have made it to an AFI screening of Soderbergh's four hour meditation on the life of Ernesto Che Guevara. To many he is a handsome face on a t-shirt that has something to do with rebellion. To other people, like those "real" American patriots who are so often pandered to during elections he's some vague symbol of terrorism or Communism or the big bad 1960s. Soderbergh has offered us a very detailed corrective to what we may think we know about his life and his battles.
The Motorcycle Diaries was a beautiful rendering of what inspired Che, as a young man, to leave his affluent Argentinian existence and to take his fine medical education to fight on behalf of the majority of people living on this earth who suffer at the hands of the greedy and powerful. Here, Soderbergh, offers us the matured Che, and the exact details of his actions as a revolutionary: how he succeeded in Cuba and then how he was brought down in the Bolivia.
Let me go back. Did I mention that I sat in Graumann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood for over four hours? And I did not bat an eye or look at my watch once. In fact when it ends you are left with that sad feeling, not only because we all know what happens to Che, but also because the experience of watching a great film has ended. These are two movies and the plan is to open them separately, but here I will look at them both.
Part One, also known as The Argentine is simply called Cuba begins with a map illustrating the movement of the guerillas from the mountains to the cities. Che is on the ground in the jungle, the details about the relationships between the fighters, how they are recruited, how they are trained and the integral part that Guevara played for Fidel Castro is presented in forward moving narrative. Interspersed between this long march are black and white scenes of Che's visit to New York on the occasion of his address to the U.N. This film ends with the triumph of the revolutionary victory and a seemingly happy ending, except we know what happens next.
Part Two, also known as Guerrilla, opens in Bolivia, a mere 6 years later. We are told that Guevara has been working in the Congo. And despite his family, we know that he is unsettled, that he cannot stop the struggle. And there is enough subtelty and skilled acting by Benicio del Toro that we see from the beginning that this is a complex, conflicted and restless soul. When it all comes down to it, what did undo the man? We are left with that question unresolved, it is partly his own blindness to the fact that there was no Castro in Bolivia. Maybe it was the ramped up American meddling or the ethnic conflicts and lack of cooperation by the establishment lefties.
And maybe this is exactly what makes Soderbergh the mightier of the two big Stephens. He doesn't insist on answering all of our questions. These are films that present complex facts and events and mostly ask us, demand that we consider them thoughtfully and come to our own conclusions. That is the true purpose of art -- not only to mollify but to be transformative by reaching deep inside of of.
For my purposes, watching a film like CHE only reminds me of my own background and what my parents were advocating for when they campaigned for progressive causes and went south to fight for civil rights. I remember being shocked in a class I was teaching once when a student from a rural town informed me that she had been taught that the Black Panther's were terrorists. Now there are terrorists and there are TERRORISTS. Some murder thousands of people in one stroke in a religious fervor because God has promised them something in heaven. But Che and the Panthers who were inspired by him did truly begin by trying to fight the crippling oppression that has kept so many poor people unable to exercise even basic rights to a sustainable living, education and health care.
For a social justice person like me this film means everything. For an artistic soul like me, it is an exquisite work of art. Soderbergh shot the entire film, except for the black and white sequences by the "revolutionary" Red One, a digital camera that harkens the end of celluloid as we know it. Aesthetically this film is probably one of the best looking hand-held jungle films ever made, the images soft, yet focused, conveying the cinema-quality look and feel that only the best Director's of Photography can get. I complain a lot about the sorry state of popular culture and then December rolls along and it's one masterpiece after the other. These two films truly qualify, one uplifting, one truly melancholic. It's history as visual poetry, please go and see them.
CHE opens for a limited release on December 12, 2008, wider on January 24, 2009.
PART ONE: AKA The Argentine
Directed by Steven Soderbergh; written by Peter Buchman, based on Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War by Ernesto Che Guevara; produced by Laura Bickford and Benicio Del Toro; director of photography, Peter Andrews; edited by Pablo Zumarraga; music by Alberto Iglesias. Released by IFC films. Running time:
With: Benicio Del Toro (Ernesto Che Guevara); Demian Bichir (Fidel Castro); Rodrigo Santoro (Raul Castro); Santiago Cabrera (Camilo Cienfuegos); Vladimir Cruz (Ramiro Valdes Menendez) and Catalina Sandino Moreno (Aleida March).
PART TWO: AKA Guerilla
Directed by Steven Soderbergh; written by Peter Buchman and Benjamin A. Van Der Veen based on The Bolivian Diary by Ernesto Che Guevara; produced by Laura Bickford and Benicio Del Toro; director of photography, Peter Andrews; edited by Pablo Zumarraga; music by Alberto Iglesias.
With: Benicio Del Toro (Ernesto Che Guevara); Franka Potente(Tania); Carlos Bardem (Moises Guevara); Demian Bichir (Fidel Castro); and Joaquim De Almeida (President Rene Barrientos).
