Che

As the initial reviews for Che: Part One trickled out, there was an almost inevitable collective shrug of the shoulders and a seeming determination amongst the media not to be impressed. Projects like this normally go one of two ways, if history tells us anything: they get roundly pummelled with the kind of leering relish normally reserved for child murderers, or they get the whole works – Oscar, plaudits aplenty, the keys to the box office. Che was damned with indifference, grudgingly respected by most with little fanfare. It slipped under the radar to a large extent, much like Three Burials (see below).

The dust has pretty much settled and the film can now be watched on the plasma in one BIG sitting, and I’d argue that this is the only way to watch it: my local Cineworld put them on back-to-back but that’s an ask for the casual moviegoer (I was at some football game or would’ve tentatively braved it) so here’s the compromise: watch them with a little hiatus in between and you can’t go wrong. Not to say that this is a Kill Bill-type situation where the two halves were arguably pointless (one three-hour splice was the original and best idea; too much stuff in there that should’ve been left on the cutting-room floor – see Death Proof). Here, the two parts complement each other perfectly and contain nothing that you could happily excise.

Demián Bichir excellently captures Fidel Castro as a likeably intense commandant leading his band of exiles back to Cuba to topple US puppet Batista. Del Toro’s Guevara is initially a medic with rifle skills, well-liked but on the fringes, a lone Argentine amidst brothers in arms. He even voices his disquiet at being perceived as an outcast; Castro refutes this with a terse advocacy of his being an honorary Cuban, but it’s odd and intriguing watching an uncertain Guevara, pre-iconic status, dealing with issues of belonging and self-worth as Batista’s overthrow was imminent.

Soderbergh’s restlessly interrogative camera flips to black-and-white during flash-forward sequences following Guevara in New York, on television, in cars, and there is clearly an attempt to capture the almost mystical essence of the man. During these scenes the pre-Cuban-assault Che is nowhere to be seen: he is by now imbued with an enigmatic purpose that is part charismatic heft and part elusive, inexorable drive.

The Guevara of the Bolivian sequences, on an increasingly far-reaching quest to spread revolution amongst South America, becomes a tragic figure heading in one direction, and Del Toro’s subtle intensity as he heads for a bloody demise evokes a sense of stubborn, selfless grandeur that seems all too pervasive in contemporary Hollywood.

The truth, and the key to the only real flaw of Che, is the shadow cast over the film by the spectacular central performance. A key criticism of the film has been that Del Toro forces everything else into the background. Fair point, really. Soderbergh throws everything at Del Toro and it bounces; he soon becomes the mesmeric heart of the film, and is perhaps too dominant for a straight biopic. Which is thankfully far from what this is.

Benicio Del Toro not only hits this formidable, countlessly interpreted role out of the park, he knocks it beyond the clouds, dents a jumbo and catches the rebound. In terms of a portrayal of a non-fictitious protagonist, he is as good as anything out there: laughable that he didn’t sweep the board but time will be a better judge. Indeed, the last time you saw anything nearly this good was Bruno Ganz’s oft-erupting volcano in Downfall. It really is the best performance in years; nuanced, painstaking yet wearing doubtlessly arduous research lightly, reluctant to resort to fireworks and thoroughly convincing. It lends the Guevara you’ve seen emblazoned on student t-shirts forever a depth, humanity and complexity fully deserving of the man. Gael Garcia Bernal had a crack at a much earlier incarnation in The Motorcycle Diaries. He was excellent, but he had a whole lot less to do. Del Toro gives us a mammoth, immutable Che Guevara we can live with and contemplate for years. In attempting to capture this timelessly controversial icon, defeat is almost inevitable for both star and director, and both seem bound by an acceptance of this as they instead strive for, and achieve, a gloriously vivid unravelling.