2009-08-22T23:49:00.000-07:00

CHE (Steven Soderbergh, 2008)

The two part Che, as directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Benicio Del Toro, is a movie that deserves recognition for all kinds of reasons. Che stands out in a crowd of dissapointing 2008 movies but has been commercially and critically neglected in the USA, which has resulted in a sheep like reaction in the rest of the world.

For myself, being both critical of the figure of Guevera and the wrongheaded appropriation and meaningless use of his image on t-shirts and posters, my faith in the qualities of the movie were not particurlarly high. To my surprise, Steven Soderbergh seems to share my point of view in all of this because he's made exactly the kind of movie I like to see. Disregarding the big emotional setups, or trying to shoe in humanizing (but totally subjective) elements from Guevera's private life to make him more accessible for an audience, Soderbergh instead concentrates on the ideas of the man and the way he implemented them. That being said, the net result of both parts is a strange melancholy feeling: not in a romantic movie ending kind of way but in realising that for Guevara more things went wrong than right in his life, and mostly because of the kind of person he was: strict, dogmatic, and uncomprimising. He may have ended up a martyr of sorts and inspired both questionable and noble causes, but the movie shows the cost without the glamour.

It's hard to make a movie that deals objectively with a historical figure, especially someone like Che Guevara where myth, politics and facile posturing could surely be a perfect recipe for a crap movie. But Soderbergh once again proves how good he can be as a director, because all the choices he has made are exquisite. He keeps the dialogue in spanish as befitting revolutionaries operating in the Southern hemisphere, uses aspect ratios (widescreen 'scope for part 1, 1.85:1 for part 2) and filming methods to both differentiate and enhance aspects of the two stories, and observes the action without editorializing the viewers emotions. Each half focuses on a different revolution, both fundamentally the same in theory but vastly different in outcome.

Che will in the coming years either serve as a reminder of what movies can achieve when they go beyond catering for focus groups or will prove to be the end of the road for how far directors are willing to go in ignoring audience expectations. Disheartening at this point are the shrugged shoulders and overall critical reaction of established critics for Che. I guess Soderbergh's misgivings after the fact (in this interview he even goes as far to say he wished he hadn't made the movie) are in part a reaction to that, besides the financial problems inherent both in the making and marketing. I believe Che is a monumental achievement, and one that both Soderbergh and Del Toro can be immensely proud of.

Movies To Ponder