Che: Part 1

2008. Dir: Steven Soderbergh. Starring: Benecio Del Toro, Julia Ormond, Demián Bichir, Catalina Sandino Moreno and Rodrigo Santoro . ●●●●○

It has been over 24 hours since I saw Che: Part 1 and I'm not sure I've given enough time to fully be able to review the film. The experience was so visceral, so raw I find it difficult to seperate my thoughts about the process from my thoughts about the film making. It is common, when watching biopics, to be unable to distance my ideas about the characters to those of the film, but somehow, because of the way Che was made, I find it even harder than normal.

The films alternates between scenes of the July 26th movement's struggle against Batista's dictatorship in Cuba and Che's triumphant speech to the UN headquarters in December 1964.


It is in Cuba that the film is truly alive. We are plunged alongside Ernesto "Che" Guevera as he fights alongside Fidel Castro, romps with the wounded, leads the troops and in his decisive battle in Santa Clara. During these sections we get a real insight into what Guevera was like: his crippling asthma, his belief in education as being the only way of leading Cuba out of poverty, his resolve and bloody mindedness, even his ideas on justice.

In the main this is due to the seamless performance by Del Toro who disappears completely in the role, physically and spiritually embodying the famed revolutionary. Soderbergh's cinematography and direction help with this feat, the camera always appears to be placed so that Che is central to the action, or ahead of the rest of the crowd. You end up feeling like you're following Guevera in a documentary.

The grainy black and white work in the New York scenes are less sucessful. Seeming more like a greatest hits of Guevera's speeches and some interlocking scenes I was aching either to here the speech in full or just return to the Cuban jungles.

The rest of the cast are exemplarary too, even if the nature of guerilla warfare and the films focus on Che means that many of them have little characterisation to work with.

Perhaps the biggest issue I had with the film was that it seemed to focus on how Che acted but not on the why. It seems that Fidel persuaded him to join the Cuban revolution over a single cigar. Even in the New York scenes, where Del Toro is interviewed by Ormond he states he fully realized why he was joining the campaign whilst transporting the sick from the attack on the Moncado barracks yet what this why is is never investigated.

Maybe the whys will be become more apparent following Che: Part 2. Until then the review can only ever be 4 out of 5 blobs.