By Meseret Haddis
I saw Che back in December during its road show circuit here in New York. These are some of my thoughts and impressions of the film, which are marked in italics.
The Argentine
For those going to see Che, now being screened at the IFC Center, it’s good to know a few things beforehand. At this point, it’s hard to not have an opinion about Che Guevera. For those who believe that he’s a symbol and a revolutionary, The Argentine is a film you want to see.
It’s tough to analyze something that’s such a symbol for the revolution. As far as objectively looking at Guevara goes, Soderbergh holds him up to an ideal that confirms most people’s preconceptions of the man.
Soderbergh remarked in a recent interview that it would be interesting to gauge people’s reactions to the film if they saw each film on a different weekend. Seeing the film back to back gives each film context, but it also doesn’t give the viewer breathing room. What’s interesting about the style of The Argentine is that it’s disjointed, often showing three different periods in Che’s life. This back and forth is accentuated by the visual style of each section.
The U.N. is shot in 16mm black and white while the Cuban revolution shot in Technicolor. The interplay between the visuals adds to the dynamic of the black and white images, which show a foreboding Che in the 60s after the revolution. In comparison, the color images represent the rich culture of the Cubans who want reformation.
Bencio Del Toro’s performance as Che is very likable; you are drawn to him, much like many Cuban’s were during the period. The disjointed feeling of the story adds to this likeability; when he’s speaking at the U.N. about the La Cabaña executions, it’s hard to look at the executions objectively because of what is being shown before and after it. He looks like a hero at the U.N., while boasting that the Cubans have executed and that they will keep on executing. In an odd way, Guevara appears more heroic at the beginning of the film than he does later on, in the mountains in Cuba.
Bencio Del Toro is playing Che as a sick and weak man, constantly coughing and holding his side and not being able to physically endure the struggles of fighting in the Sierra Maestra with his soldiers. His performance shows someone who’s moving forward because of will power.
To reiterate, the first part still holds Che as a revolutionary and it would be hard for someone to leave the film without a sense of this symbolic weight. Yes, the atrocities of La Cabaña are brought up, but they’re almost hidden, and you lose the context of those executions, which in a way diminish their importance. The disjointed structure is able to hide the bad within the intercutting of the events, but it also de-glamorizes what people think when it comes to the revolution and when it comes to Che .
In the second half, I don’t know what I’m going to expect - whether this symbol (Che) will be uplifted further (which may be difficult to do, since it seems like he could do no wrong at this point). If I weren’t already familiar with Guevara’s story, the first part of Soderbergh’s film would lead me to believe that this revolutionary leader could do no wrong. I don’t know if Soderbergh wanted the audience to think a certain way for the first half so that he could convince them of something else in the second half, but I think it will be interesting to see how he deals with Che’s representation for the Cuban revolution. There’s clearly a side that we’re suppose to take (and it’s Che’s side).
The Guerilla
Going into the second film, I was wondering if the symbol of Che would be maintained – (it’s clear that it won’t be maintained; slowly breaks down in the second film).
The first time we see Che, he’s bald, he’s older, and he looks like a different man. He’s in a disguise, but the duality of a figure like him having to impersonate a normal person in order to kick start a revolution in Bolivia, goes to what he believes as a bottom to top movement. Just because of the fame and success he is known for in Cuba, doesn’t make other revolutions any easier. In fact it proves harder for him, because he now has the US and Bolivian government focusing on eliminating him.
Probably the most signifying shot here is of Che lying in bed in a Bolivian hotel. He’s quietly reading the paper.
This comes off as very distinct change from the first film, where you can’t catch your breath in between switching time periods and locations. Here it’s just him, the symbol, bald and alone. His process in Bolivia begins similarly as it did in Cuba; recruit peasants and build support among the community, but what’s different now is that people are on to him. The Bolivian government is working for the United States, using propaganda to dissuade its people from assisting the rebel forces. Not only is the government against him, but many of the people he meets will also turn against him. This force of revolution, which pushed him through the mountains of Cuba to make his way to Havana, slowly loses its color to the point of destruction. Bad luck turns worse as his health deteriorates and becomes more of a problem as they trek through the mountains. The Guerilla does an exceptional job at debunking the idea that one man is capable of creating a revolution. Che wasn’t the reason the Cuban revolution succeeded - it was the people’s revolution, something that he tries to express in The Guerilla, but doesn’t translate like it did in Cuba.
The second film was narrative story. We went from disjointed pieces in the first film to a complete linear story that traverses the struggles of the Bolivia movement for 300 some days. I think the second film establishes the deconstruction of the symbol and the myth without glory. Che doesn’t die in glory and, in a way, it makes it personal, it demystifies Che and it shows that he’s just a person who was able to achieve these things. It’s not clear if that is a call for arms or not, although I don’t believe it is. I think it’s a great showing of how the myth of someone can not only be debunked but also destroyed. In the first film, he’s very affable and you want to be on his side, and in the second film you still are connected, but you know it’s not going well.
Once The Guerilla finished, Soderbergh came and took questions from the audience and it soon turned emotional. People were yelling out, “He was a murderer!” “He was a revolutionary!” and it was clear that the film brought produced strong emotions. Soderbergh ended up having to defend why he didn’t show the La Cabana executions, which were mentioned during Che’s U.N. speech. Everyone has an opinion of Che, and I believe that Soderbergh wanted us to look at him in a different light, regardless of these opinions. I think for those who want to keep him a symbol are heeded to watch the first film only, because you will be tested of that belief in the second film and it doesn’t end neatly justifying him as a symbol. But it’s good to have a sense of objectivity when viewing this film because, without it, you will be limiting yourself.
As Soderbergh adds in a recent interview:
“He is a murderer to them. He is irredeemable, and it’s hard. And sometimes you can have a reasonable conversation about it, and I can talk to them about context. And I can talk to them about balance and my reasons for showing the two periods that I show, and addressing the issues of the executions in the way we do. But some people literally can’t… I was having a discussion with this journalist in Europe, and he said, ‘I don’t know how you can make this film and not address the executions’… And I said, ‘It’s in the film. It’s in the UN. He says in a close-up, ‘We execute people. We’ve never denied it, and we’re going to keep executing people because this is a fight to the death’…
For people who don’t like Che, he is defined by the events at La Cabaña, and to me, the events at La Cabaña are consistent with what I read about him and what I heard about him.”
For people who know Che and his history, the film will be a great starting point for discussion of whether or not Soderbergh has a subjective aim or not. The film presents us with a history that goes beyond the T-shirt with that curious-looking, bearded man on the front.
Che opens January 9th at the IFC Center in New York City.
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