Summary:
Ernesto Che Guevara and a band of Fidel Castro-led Cubans mobilize to topple the regime of dictator Fulgencio Batista.
My Thoughts:
Every revolution has heroes, but do those heroes always deserve to be glorified? If injustices are being perpetuated, does that mean extreme violence can be used to stop those injustices?
These questions are some of the bigger questions that at least Part One of Steven Soderbergh’s epic character study of “Che” seems to be wrestling with. It’s hard to really define how I feel about the movie “Che”, partially because the character himself is so controversial. Even today, I know that brining up his name around those of Cuban descent can bring up bad memories, and his face, which has become somewhat of an icon for revolutionaries, is still a divisive symbol. However, divisive people are often the most interesting; I would rather have an antihero than a hero in most fiction, and Che is certainly an antihero.
I think that part of the brilliance of this film is the way that it depicts Che (Benicio Del Toro, “Sicario”) and Fidel’s (Demian Bichir, “The Nun”) rise to power. The story is told nonlinearly, flashing through different, important sections of the military campaign through to the time after they’d toppled Batista’s dictatorship and were fighting to establish their own control. In flashing forward and backwards, we learn what it is that Che is trying to accomplish in joining Fidel’s campaign, and we see the stark difference between their stated goals and what they ended up achieving and how. In the beginning of the campaign, before they ever even make it to Cuba, the revolutionaries’ goal is to eradicate corruption and establish a new, fair government. Many people would probably agree that the eradication of corruption is a good thing, and that Che’s intentions, when they started, were probably just. When we cut from this origin point of the revolutionaries stating their goals, and then flash forward to when Che is addressing the UN, talking about the executions carried out by his government, saying: “Yes, we have executed. We execute, and we’ll continue to execute.” The effect is pretty jarring. We get a sense that this intelligent, charismatic man on a mission to change the world still has his drive, but somewhere along the way, he lost his way and turned into the very thing he wanted to stop.
Soderbergh is pretty much at the top of his game with this lengthy biopic. He switches from black and white to color, and uses different color tones to differentiate different timelines. The way that he crafts the story, too, never really slows down; we’re always being fed information about how the revolution happened, or how the rest of the world accepted their revolution. The film never shies away from the unjustified killings that Che perpetuated, nor does it try to justify any of actions (violent or otherwise). I think this perspective, of just portraying the man as a flawed but driven man, helps us to get a better sense of him as a person. It doesn’t try to deify him or vilify him; it accepts that some of the things he did were truly horrific, and others, were truly heroic. Soderbergh’s style feels almost like a documentary here, and that does wonders for the film as a whole.
Verdict:
Che is both an entertaining and didactic watch. The film’s pacing is quick, Soderbergh’s directing is pretty great, the acting is stellar, and the story the film tells is worth hearing. Honestly, my biggest qualms about seeing this movie were that I didn’t know if someone who was so controversial should be glorified, but that’s not at all what this movie does. “Che: Part One” was absolutely worth seeing, and I’m eagerly awaiting watching “Che: Part Two” tonight.
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