Steven Soderbergh’s Che is the kind of film that makes me feel guilty for not liking it more. It’s serious and formally rigorous. To make matters worse, it’s a historical drama, and about a controversial figure of whom I know shockingly little. Someone well-versed in the history of the Cuban revolution and in Ernesto Guevara’s life in general would have a better grasp on the film’s factual accuracy. It’s based on Guevara’s own writings, and I would assume, based on my own limited readings, that it’s faithful to his perspective. Che deals with three discrete periods in the man’s life and does not dwell on his admiration for Stalin or Mao or deal directly with his role in the tribunals and executions of La Cabana. But the film certainly gives every indication that Guevara would be capable of extremity in the name of his ideology.
Che is long. Part One, aka The Argentine, is 126 minutes. It opens with a lengthy graphic depicting a map of Cuba, where all the different regions and major cities are gradually revealed. This mirrors the opening of Part Two: Guerilla (131 minutes), except that Part Two deals with Guevara’s failed revolutionary efforts in Bolivia, so that map shows Bolivia and some of its major cities, and then gradually shows the surrounding countries that comprise South America. Theoretically, these two maps and the way they are depicted offer insight into a crucial difference between the two campaigns, and one is forced to consider this by the duration the maps are left on the screen. Aesthetically, the maps change colors and they’re pretty. From a practical standpoint, please, let’s get on with the story.
So I will. Part One cuts back and forth between Guevara’s (Benicio Del Toro) first meeting with Fidel Castro (Demián Bichir), the beginnings of his revolutionary activity in Cuba, and his post-revolution visit to New York in 1964. As the revolutionary campaign progresses, and Guevara comes into his own as a leader and a military commander, Soderbergh repeatedly cuts back to his visit to New York—being interviewed by the American media, attending a soiree, making a speech at the UN and responding cuttingly to his diplomatic detractors. Soderbergh occasionally overlaps sound of Guevara discussing his revolutionary philosophy (“The most important quality for a revolutionary is love…”) and military strategy with scenes of him and his men in the jungles.
Cuba is shot in color, New York in black-and-white. This may seem counterintuitive, but it gives the New York section the feel of documentary. Along with the crosscutting and overlapped sound, it gives the impression that Guevara’s ascension as inevitable. It also suggests that in moving from revolutionary to figurehead, something vital has been lost, and this is reinforced by the banality of some of his interactions in New York.
Del Toro is a great actor, and he brings a quiet depth to the role that makes the film more engaging than it might have been. Only a few of Guevara’s many comrades make any kind of impression. Fidel is played with a wry confident charm by Bichir. (Weeds fans may recognize him as Nancy Botwin’s Mexican politician boyfriend.) You understand the man’s power when he is onscreen. Catalina Sandino Moreno supplies a few welcome moments of tenderness as Aleida March, and Santiago Cabrera is memorable as the boisterous Camilo Cienfuegos. And I should point out that while there are a few recognizable actors in the film, the only ones who stood out to the point where I stopped and thought, “Hey, look, that’s…” were Matt Damon and Lou Diamond Phillips in Part Two, and I think in both instances, the casting was a propos.
Part of the problem with Part Two is that no one takes the place of those minor figures noted above. Soderbergh seems to treat his supporting players not as an ensemble, but as background. Guevara stands apart from them all. One of the main points of the film is his sense of distance from the men he was leading. This was largely because he was an Argentine. It could also have been due to his class and intellectual background, but Soderbergh highlights it again and again. Even after he’s recognized as a Cuban by the world, he tries to lead a revolution in Bolivia and is still seen as a meddling foreigner.
Soderbergh’s camerawork (working under the pseudonym Peter Andrews) is the best I’ve seen from him. There are beautiful shots of the jungle, and moments of great visual power in each half of the film. There’s a certain level of fascination with the procedural aspects, although the bigger picture is sometimes hard to see. In Part One, we definitely get a sense of Guevara’s growth. But by the time he reaches Bolivia, he’s fully formed. He applies everything he learned in Cuba, and nothing works the way it should. So while Part One is lugubriously paced, it’s also fairly upbeat emotionally, and dynamic. Part Two is tragic, and it does have some powerful moments, but it’s also repetitive, dour, and occasionally confusing, as I tried to remember who’s who, figure out who’s where, and why. I don’t think we’re meant to spend much of the last hour of the film hoping that Guevara will be captured soon, and yet that’s how it feels.
But while J. Hoberman in the Village Voice—who found Part Two superior, and Part One more like a traditional Hollywood biopic—points out that you can’t have Part Two without Part One, I am forced to acknowledge that, despite the decline in my enjoyment level, it wouldn’t really make sense to see Part One without Part Two. At least, I think that would be a betrayal of the filmmaker’s aims. And while it might be appealing to split the films into two separate viewings, they’re clearly meant to be seen together, in contrast to one another.
Che is not a history lesson. (I learned more about the history by reading the relevant Wikipedia entries than I did from the film.) It’s not a polemic. Like its subject, Che is meticulous, stoic, focused, uncompromising, intelligent, and even courageous. It’s an ambitious and admirable work, and I’m glad it was made. I just wish it felt more essential. It contains much of Guevara’s force of will, but little of his passion.