Granma's Review of "Che"

[magbana]

GRANMA
December 5, 2008

Steven Soderbergh's Che Guevara

ROLANDO PEREZ BETANCOURT

Among the films that most interest filmgoers at Havana’s New Latin American Cinema Festival is The Argentine and The Guerrilla, centered on the figure of Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, the two films were scheduled to be premiered over the weekend. A first rapprochement to this over four-hour ambitious story allows us to speak about a respectful approach to such a legendary figure, without leaving out the controversies both in terms of the treatment of certain historical contents and its aesthetic connotations.

When we watch The Argentine and The Guerrilla, the first thing that comes to mind, especially with respect to the first one, is the kind of audience it will have, because, if movie goers overseas and less seasoned in Cuban history can find credibility and authenticity, both in the development of characters and in the performance of actors, someone who has grown up in these lands detects the false tone of some recreations, or the histrionic imitation trying to make up for a real complex character.

Allow me to cite two examples, among many: the image of late Cuban leader Camilo Cienfuegos. The actor has a startling resemblance with him but he is conceived in the script in such an oversimplified way that he seems to be a comedian from a fair. The Fidel Castro interpreted by Demian Bechir, whose work has been praised, depicts the gestures that became an iconographic collection of the first years of the Revolution, but don’t go beyond an exact replica; he lacks charisma and depth.

At this point of evolving aesthetics, in which very few people would think of demanding absolute fidelity between historical facts and their artistic transposition, the aforementioned aspect can’t stop being risky in a story that takes place on the most faithful tracks of realism. In its first part it displays an efficient style of documentary narration, in black and white, making reference to Che’s visit to the United Nations and the interview he gave a US journalist, all of which lends itself to set out, from the astuteness of his thinking, the ideological his convictions.

The first part, shot after the second one, has a linear structure made up by a series of historical facts ––the journey of the Granma yacht, the battles in the Sierra Maestra mountains, the treatment given to traitors, the new forces joining the guerrillas, the battle of Santa Clara––, which is imposed as a mere graphic reconstruction of something already known. And between episodes of combat and historical characters that don’t convince due to their lack of depth on the script, the filmmakers barely approach the decisive factor in movies of this type: emotion.

The Argentine lacks dramatic writing, and not precisely because it avoids seeking the "exact" nature of facts, but rather because every now and then the director gives the impression of losing his way amid so much abundance of material and characters.

We must applaud Soderbergh and Benicio del Toro, the actor that efficiently manages to make the public get closer to a flesh and blood hero of high spiritual stature and for accepting the challenge of taking this story to the screen, taking into account that Che Guevara is one of the most loved and at the same time hated figures in the history of humankind, and there’s no need to underline the ideological and social differences of those both sides.

The purpose of the two artists has been, undoubtedly, to reflect a man that has become a legend without turning the story they’re telling into a myth. If we talk about results, I wouldn’t hesitate to affirm that in spite of its defects, these two films are more positive than negative in an international framework in which Che Guevara’s figure is the object of the most dissimilar manipulations.

We all know what the figure of Che Guevara has been in the hands of the Hollywood, which in no way should be interpreted as a consolation of what is now admissible (Soderbergh’s Che Guevara) compared to the garbage made before. Cuban cinematography will have to assume, at some point, its own challenge of telling these stories with their most authentic nuances and not exempt from controversy.

If in the first part of this long movie there’s a deficient artistic making, in the second, The Guerrilla, we can appreciate that Soderbergh has grown up as a storyteller, in command of a visual density of higher caliber. However, for those who have read Che’s diary and other documents about those days in Bolivia the same question comes to surface: why the producers preferred to highlight less important events over others that were more significant, or changed the names and attitudes of some of the guerrillas.

And, on this point, the critic stopped writing to knock on the door of the Center for Che Guevara Studies, an entity that since the beginning of Soderbergh’s project was in contact with the director and put in his hands the most varied documents and the historical advise he needed, both in terms of theory and facts. This was hard work that, according to the Center’ executives, never questioned the logical changes historical facts could have on the screen, but yes, seeing to it that their essence was not distorted.

Hence the Center —which helped to correct mistakes on the first drafts and threw light over several confused aspects—, has some reservations and dissatisfactions with respect to the finished work, among them —just to mention one— the lightweight treatment given to the character of Tania la guerrilla.

All these aspects should be taken into account at the time of watching Soderbergh’s Che Guevara on the Havana big screens.

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