| Meet the man behind the icon Steven Soderbergh's epic two-part bipoic about Che Guevara finally comes to Winnipeg - and it's not to be missed
A+
| CHE
Now playing at Globe Cinema
Steven Soderbergh's four-hour-plus biopic about Ernesto Che Guevara is ambitious and sprawling, well-planned thematically and conceptually, but it's extremely intimate in its overall two-film arc. By its very nature, this kind of movie can't help but polarize viewers.
No wonder it had a difficult time securing distribution.
Che: Part One, subtitled The Argentine, documents Che as he embarks and acts out his part in the Cuban Revolution of the late 1950s. Jumping around the years, Soderbergh distills Che's essence and credo, allowing a more traditional esthetic to chart the course of the triumphant coup d'état that nonetheless alienated Che from the Castro brothers.
While this film is wildly dissimilar in its handling of the central character compared to the earlier, unfocused Che! (directed by Richard Fleischer in 1969), stylistically, the newer movie could be the Hollywood cousin of its predessor.
Part Two, or Guerilla, details the unsuccessful invasion of Bolivia that resulted in the death of Che, his revolutionary courage on display every step of the way. After his death, Che's body was put on the landing skids of a helicopter and later displayed for pictures as officials taunted the corpse. It's a gloomy end to a legendary life.
Guerilla is more immediate in its adoption of the hand-held camera; Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers surely was a leading influence here.
This film is a traditional historical epic imbued with a greater sense of urgency and purpose. It contemplates the myth of Che by presenting what the filmmakers believe to be the man's key attributes.
The director and his writers (Peter Buchman, Benjamin A. van der Veen, and, yes, Terrence Malick) made their decisions accordingly, and whether they were right or wrong to omit any mention of the controversial executions ordered by Che, theirs is a valid interpretation that should be judged by what it includes.
Che, as inhabited by Del Toro, has an irrepressible spirit and charm combined with an unrelenting refusal to give up. Immersing himself wholeheartedly in the role, Del Toro lived with the characterization for close to a decade, meeting the surviving figures of Che's life and poring through the many written documents that have been published. It was probably crucial that he did so, of course, considering that the weight of Che is firmly on his shoulders, he delivers in spades.
Soderbergh continues to improvise and experiment with a career that's been anything but ordinary. (For the record, he's since moved on to a decidedly sexless movie about a high-class prostitute featuring porn star Sasha Grey.)
The Globe's limited engagement of this Extended Roadshow Edition (meaning the screening includes an intermission and a collector's program) may also be the film event of the year in?Winnipeg, and it makes for perfect counter-programming to the droning summer escapist entertainment currently being offered in multiplexes. You can almost be thankful that it's taken so long to get here.
— Aaron Graham |
Uptown
Magazine - Winnipeg's Online Source for Arts, Entertainment & News
