I saw an early draft of Steven Soderbergh's Che last night at the London Film Festival (it was a festival cut in two parts - The Argentine and Guerrilla, for a total of 252 minutes). I wasn't going to and I didn't really feel like it - a friend had passed the tickets on, and no matter how many people I tried to hand them over to, they just kept coming back to me. I took it as a sign, bit the dust and went.I was pleasantly surprised by Part 1: it's a terrific film, a good story, an unglamourising portrayal of the man and the times. Soderbergh is one of those directors who know how to tell a story by using cinematography over words; he is possibly the best director of cars in cinema; he must have recently watched The Thin Red Line and made notes on representing landscape in war, use of sound, voiceover. Bravo, all excellent things.
On the other hand, Part 2 was a lot closer to what I had expected: plodding and doomed, it tells of the failure of the second Bolivian revolution led by Che, and shows him gradually falling out of touch, and disintegrating under the weight of his ideals and image.The narrative trajectory is worth exploring and it is fascinating in contrast with Part 1, but by the third hour in the cinema you know what's coming and can't really drum up an interest.
I asked myself if this is because really we enjoy the story of Che the revolutionary winner over Che the failed world liberator - after all the fantasy that the people can get together and overthrow the oppressor is a lot more dramatic than a bunch of folks from different Latin American countries starving in the woods, choked by the military junta and painful asthma attacks. I can't tell you. I am far from being the kind of gal who wears a Che t-shirt or badge, I never have been, not even in my rebellious teens. The violence never appealed to me. But I admire Che the reader, the intellectual, the teacher, and the doctor, and in Part 1 you see a lot more of that. The sequences of his visit to the UN and his interviews with the US press are electrifying.
Overall, Che is undoubtedly over-long, and needs to be cut down to 3 hours (two made up of Part 1, and one made up of Part 2), but it is also undoubtedly a great cinematic feat and great film. I hope we will see a better final cut soon but I am really glad I got to sit through the whole 252 minutes (and I saw Benicio del Toro in person - yumm).
Technorati Tagged: Film reviews; Che; Steven Soderbergh; London Film Festival
