Che Guevara along with Fidel Castro travelled to Cuba by boat from Mexico during late 1956. Of the 82 people on that boat only a handful saw the revolution of 1959. Steven Soderbergh’s sympathetic portrayal of the revolutionary, which frankly, I would have given the film more than the 3 stars Guardian’s film critic Peter Bradshaw awarded it. Firstly, Bradshaw compares it to the Motorcycle Diaries by Walter Salles that depicts a young Ernesto Guevara travels and it is indeed a lyrical, moving and poignant film that explores his developing political consciousness. And Bradshaw’s contention is that Soderbergh doesn’t get under Che’s skin, a kind of what made the revolutionary tick. Well, the film is based on Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War where Che documents his experiences of guerilla warfare. It’s not a touchy-feely intimate portrayal and I certainly didn’t expect that. I expected a more documentary feel to the film. And that’s what you get.
The film starts in late 1956 where Che meets Fidel Castro. They had the belief of organising a revolution in Cuba and overthrowing the dictator Batista. At the same time the films shifts to 1964 where he speaks at the UN and is interviewed. It is wonderfully stylish cinematography grainy black/white scene where there are scenes that you only partially glimpse Che. It’s reduced to iconic aspects of him such as his cigar, part of his head and so on. And then it would be back to the organising and the fighting in technicolour.
Much of the film, obviously, is made up of the fighting and I found it convincing. Che leading columns of rebel fighters. We see his disciplinary approach, tactical manoeuvres, relationship with the Soviet Union, and behaving as a doctor. To his fellow comrades he is ‘Che’ or ‘the doctor’. We see him recruiting men and women to fight though he turns people who can’t read or write away. In one scene when he asks a group of people who could read and write, only three put up their hands and one includes a woman. That’s the other thing about this film is that you witness men and women fighting together. And the fact that women are taking part shows a political and social difference.
The battles fought in the moutains and in the towns is well captured. Fighting from building to building, street to street is portrayed. There is a documentary feel about those scenes were the camera shakes when people are involved in running battles. Scenes involving the police handing over their weapons to the rebel fighters. Certainly, soldiers were known to go over the side to the rebels by explaining their politics and treating them ok, a tactic that was successful.
Overall, it is a sympathetic portrayal of Che. Benicio Del Toro encompasses the physical demeanour and comes across as Che Guevara (Del Toro is also one of the producers for the film). It seeks not to romanticise Che but give a graphic description of guerilla warfare and revolution. Also, it was uplifting to see the ruling class on the run.
At the time of the Cuban revolution there was anti-colonial struggles in Kenya, Algeria, Vietnam, Egypt, Iraq, Malaya, Congo. So there was a whole series of struggles that influenced and developed political consciousness. And only 10 years previously there was the revolution in China.
So it is now 50 years since the Cuban revolution when Che Guevara and Fidel Castro entered Havana. The blockade still exists, USA lurking in the background waiting and hoping and even with all this Cuba has tried to survive. Yes, a deformed workers’ state addled by Stalinist bureaucracy. But still worth defending…..
Though Soderbergh has done part 2 which, at the end of part 1, you see Castro and Che talking in late 1956 Mexico. Che says if there’s revolution in Cuba there should be revolutions in the whole of Latin America. And it doesn’t bode well for him but I doubt if Soderbergh will change the ending and have Che, Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin holed up in some bar talking famous icons while smoking cigars and drinking hard liquor…. unfortunately…
