Out of Frame: Che
Benicio del Toro as Che Guevara in Steven Soderbergh's Che.
Soderbergh has stated publicly that he has no horse in this race; he's not particularly pro- or anti-Guevara, he just found him a fascinating figure. And it shows. The detail with which the director moves through the three major events covered here is painstaking and impressive, and gives no free passes, even while it shows him as undeniably human. He's saving lives, and then unapologetically defending the taking of them. The first half, which will be released on its own as The Argentine, details Guevara's first meeting with Fidel Castro and the subsequent planning and execution of the Cuban revolution. Sprinkled throughout this section are scenes (in gorgeously shot black and white) of Guevara's 1964 visit to the United Nations in his official capacity as a representative of the Cuban government. Del Toro's fiery delivery of that famous speech is a particular highlight of Part 1.
The bulk of Part 1 is taken up by the revolution itself, and by the end, you may feel like you know how to stage a coup of your own. Guevara is shown in his prime as a military leader and one of Castro's top aides. Most importantly, his passionate (and violent) idealism is reflected in the eyes of every soldier under his command. And if this is intimated to be the greatest indicator of success in the Cuban campaign, the lack of that kind of commitment is one of the great failings of his Bolivian campaign, which occupies the attention of Part 2, Guerrilla. This installment opens with Castro's speech in which he announces Guevara's sudden departure from the Cuban government, after which he went into hiding and clandestinely aided a number of revolutionary causes. By the time the film catches up with him, he's arrived in Bolivia in disguise and prepared to take command of a group of guerrilla soldiers.
But the Bolivian campaign was a disastrous failure, and led to Guevara's capture and death, owing largely to uncommitted mercenaries and soldiers who came from all over. Add to that the assistance of the CIA in bolstering the Bolivian army's meager forces, and his failure was all but guaranteed. Soderbergh's skill in creating entirely different moods to match the triumphant and tragic tones of each of these stories, yet still making them feel all of one piece, is remarkable. Part 1, shot in sweeping widescreen, has a grand and epic scope. But for Part 2, Soderbergh compresses the screen to 1.85:1, switches to far more handheld shots, and generally makes the entire film more claustrophobic, as Guevara's world begins to fall in on him.
Soderbergh has no interest in sentimentality, or back story, or even really in Guevara's philosophy, except inasmuch as he can portray it onscreen in rigorously footnoted form. In practically rejecting outright the concept of poetic license, he makes Che unlike any other biopic. In a genre that relies on guesswork and fact-based fictions to create drama, Soderbergh and screenwriter Peter Buchman decide they can create enough drama simply out of what is known, and refuse to deviate from firsthand accounts and Guevara's own journals.
It's a wild gamble in a project of this size, of this high profile, with this kind of budget. But Soderbergh has proved himself adept at going back and forth from the experimental to the mainstream more than any director working, and in many ways, Che feels like the culmination of his career to this point in that respect. And revolutionizing the way we think about biopics isn't the end of his assault on traditional cinema; the director has managed to employ digital technology in such a way as to completely mimic the warmth and beauty of film. Using the still fairly new and surprisingly inexpensive Red camera, Soderbergh—acting, as he usually does, as his own cinematographer&mdashessentially dispels any myth remaining that digital is incapable of fully supplanting analog in feature filmmaking.
Time will tell whether the lasting legacy of Che will be Soderbergh's own advancements in storytelling or technical respects, or its status as the most complete and honest picture ever filmed about Che Guevara. And let's be honest, not a lot of folks (in the U.S. anyway) are going to shell out to see this upon initial release, what with the prohibitive length (even when it is split in two, each half is well over two hours) and subtitles. And it is long, and can be a grueling experience. But Soderbergh's unique vision, combined with del Toro's rich and mesmerizing performance, have the power to transfix. Even for four and a half hours.
This 4.5 hour version of the film is now playing at E Street with two screenings daily for the next week only. Special admission price of $15 applies. After that, the film will be shown as two separate movies, Part 1 (The Argentine) and Part 2 (Guerilla), at standard admission.