DVD Review: Che - The Collector's Edition

You don't see that many movie biographies anymore. There was a time when they were fairly common in both Hollywood and Europe, but now the interest in both making and watching them seems to have almost vanished. My guess is most producers and studios nowadays think if there can't be a ton of action in it, there's no point in making a movie. If you think about it, the majority of the movie biographies that have been made recently are about either sports figures (Ali) or performers of some kind (I Walk The Line and Ray). Each of those have set pieces like fights or concerts built in which guarantee there will be more than just people on the screen talking.

So to say I was surprised when I learned somebody was making a movie about Ernesto Guevara, known to most of the world by his nickname “Che” (which is an Argentinian slang word for friend) would be something of an understatement. First of all, the United States is one country where you can definitely be assured that Che's popularity is not widespread, if in fact he's not considered an outright enemy. Who in that country is going to have either the interest or the money to make a movie about a man who spent most of his adult life fighting against the spread of what he called "American Imperialism" in South and Latin America? As it turns out, nobody, aside from director Steven Soderbergh, in the Anglo-American film community was interested in a movie filmed primarily in Spanish about one of the most well known figures of the 20th century. In fact it was the actor who ended up depicting Che, Benicio Del Toro, from Puerto Rico, who first proposed the project and was the driving force behind its development.

Originally released theatrically in two parts, The Argentinian, which deals with his time in Cuba during and after the revolution, and Guerrilla, detailing his attempts to bring the revolution to Bolivia in South America, IFC Films released a three-disc DVD set, Che: Collector's Edition, in January 2010. The set contains both parts of the movie and a third disc of special features, primarily interviews with those responsible for its creation: Del Toro, Soderbergh, and author Jon Lee Anderson whose biography Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life inspired the movie. The special features disc also contains a typical "making of" short about the first film, but there was nothing on the second film so it felt like sort of an incomplete package.

Article Author: Richard Marcus

Richard Marcus is the author of the What Will Happen In Eragon IV? and The Unofficial Heroes Of Olympus Companion, both published by Ulysses Press. He has had his work published in print and online all over the world including the German edition of Rolling Stone Magazine and www.Qantara.de. …

Visit Richard Marcus's author page — Richard Marcus's Blog