Cienfuegos disappeared at sea a few months after the Revolution triumphed, immediately becoming a formidable martyr in the revolutionary pantheon. His disappearance has always been mired in speculation that his airplane was shot down at the orders of the Castro brothers. A few minutes after Cienfuegos' Cessna aircraft departed from Camaguey Airport, a Seafury combat aircraft took off. Cienfuegos' disappearance was not reported for almost 24 hours and then Cienfuegos' own chief of staff was assassinated a few days later.
In Cuba, only Cienfuegos challenges Che as the iconic face of the Revolution. With his ever present smile, his huge mane of hair and beard, and his big hat, this fun-loving Comandante is portrayed exceptionally well by Cabrera.
Part two is a huge disappointment in its lack of character development or even the slightest explanation as to why we jump from Cuba to Bolivia. Che's Bolivian guerrilla band, which never numbered more than 51, included 17 Cubans who went along with Guevara in his effort to "export" revolution to the Americas. The Cubans held nearly all the command positions, but they were unable to speak the local Quechua language of the indigenous local Indians.
Che noted in his diaries that the local peasants were "as impenetrable as rocks." It was this inability to "penetrate" them, that doomed the Bolivian expedition.
In part two, I was also disappointed by the lack of development of the character of Tania, as played by German actress Franka Potente. Tania, an East German woman whose real name was Tamara Bunke, was killed in an ambush a few days before Che Guevara in 1967; her remains were discovered earlier this year and sent to Cuba. Those who remember the Patty Hearst saga may recall that Hearst's nickname was Tania, in honor of Che's Tania.
Che and Tania had actually met in Cuba. She told him that she was an Argentinean, when in fact she was an East German KGB agent sent to Havana to keep tabs on Che. In Bolivia, she disobeyed his orders and joined him in the highlands. When she and the other guerrillas walked into an ambush, betrayed by the local indigenous people, she was four months pregnant with Che's child.
None of these interesting facts are explored in the second film, not that I want to add time to it.
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