Last week I wrote about the preconceived thoughts and prejudices that I was bringing to Steven Soderbergh's two-part film bio-epic about the life of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Argentinean guerrilla leader and the most iconic face of the 20th century. Last night I braved a very cold Philadelphia night and set aside a whole night to see the two films at once. It all started at 7PM and it finished at 11:30PM (we also had a brief intermission).
This film is an accomplishment of time and effort; however, because the film lacks a plot, unless you are a Guevaraphile, it may bore you to sleep. I already have empirical evidence of this: the guy in front of me was asleep most of the time, and the blonde next to me was asleep for about an hour in the first film, and most of the second.
If you accept the mythical figure of Che without its dark side (Che was the grim executioner of the Cuban Revolution, and he himself executed 14 prisoners and deserters during the war; he was also the man who signed the countless firing squad death sentences after the rebels triumphed) then you may be disappointed in the fact that Soderbergh, although he focuses a lot on the humanistic side of Guevara, does not super-glorify or elevate him in the manner that past Castro or Che apologists have. In fact, more than once he delivers a boring Che.
If you consider Che as a charismatic murderer, as many people do, then you will also be disappointed by the fact that Soderbergh skips lightly over most of Che as a murdering psychopath. We see glimpses of it as Cubans shout at him during Guevara's New York visit and call him an assassin and murderer. We also see it in the rather frigid firing squad execution of two deserters in the first film. But we never see Che himself pulling the trigger against a deserter or a prisoner, as it has been documented he did 14 times.
Part one of the film covers the period of the Cuban Revolution, although it starts with a dizzying array of back-and-forth glimpses of Che and Castro in Mexico (just prior to the revolutionary landing in Oriente province), clips of Guevara in the United States after the triumph of the Revolution, and endless skirmishes and firefights during the struggle itself.
Part two makes an unfortunate jump to the end of Guevara's life, skipping all of the post-revolution years, which is where the Che myth was started. Unless you are a Guevara myth follower, you may be somewhat lost in the first twenty minutes of the second film. I will tell you that part two is an endurance test, and there were several desertions during the screening.
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