Che: Part Two (2008)
Country: US/SP/FR
Technical: col/bw/1.78:1 135m
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Franka Potente, Joaquim de Almeida
Synopsis:
The story of Guevara's year-long campaign in the Bolivian countryside, from his departure with Castro's blessing to his betrayal by Bolivian campesinos.
Review:
Based on diary entries kept by the film's subject, the screenplay is of necessity episodic and selective about those days' events it includes, but the results are not without being at times hard to follow or simply without (apparent) consequence. Nor is this state of affairs helped by the fact that in uniform the guerrillas all tend to resemble one another more or less, and it is hard to keep up with all the names. Nevertheless, on the credit side, this is an absorbing account of what seems a doomed campaign (without much more than a handful of trained men Che hoped to encourage the peasant population, weakened and demoralised and preoccupied by their own material needs, to some kind of armed uprising). By dint of exhaustive detail and close quarter acquaintance one begins to feel somehow implicated in this long march, and Del Toro strikes just the right balance between humanity and authority, always rational, always patient even when reprimanding his men. It is interesting that American involvement, which one always tended to think material in his downfall, is limited to a scene in which CIA encourage the President to hunt Guevara down ruthlessly. Whether the omission is such because it is not something Guevara would have known and therefore not within the limited scope of the scenario is possible, but it is telling that there is a sweaty close-up of the soldier who volunteers to be the one to shoot him, and one of the last shots is of a helicopter, almost certainly provided by the USA, carrying Che's body out of the jungle. Soderbergh and his team have worked a fine piece of art out of the rigours of their location shoot.
Country: US/SP/FR
Technical: col/bw/1.78:1 135m
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Franka Potente, Joaquim de Almeida
Synopsis:
The story of Guevara's year-long campaign in the Bolivian countryside, from his departure with Castro's blessing to his betrayal by Bolivian campesinos.
Review:
Based on diary entries kept by the film's subject, the screenplay is of necessity episodic and selective about those days' events it includes, but the results are not without being at times hard to follow or simply without (apparent) consequence. Nor is this state of affairs helped by the fact that in uniform the guerrillas all tend to resemble one another more or less, and it is hard to keep up with all the names. Nevertheless, on the credit side, this is an absorbing account of what seems a doomed campaign (without much more than a handful of trained men Che hoped to encourage the peasant population, weakened and demoralised and preoccupied by their own material needs, to some kind of armed uprising). By dint of exhaustive detail and close quarter acquaintance one begins to feel somehow implicated in this long march, and Del Toro strikes just the right balance between humanity and authority, always rational, always patient even when reprimanding his men. It is interesting that American involvement, which one always tended to think material in his downfall, is limited to a scene in which CIA encourage the President to hunt Guevara down ruthlessly. Whether the omission is such because it is not something Guevara would have known and therefore not within the limited scope of the scenario is possible, but it is telling that there is a sweaty close-up of the soldier who volunteers to be the one to shoot him, and one of the last shots is of a helicopter, almost certainly provided by the USA, carrying Che's body out of the jungle. Soderbergh and his team have worked a fine piece of art out of the rigours of their location shoot.
Country: US/SP/FR
Technical: col/bw/1.78:1 135m
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Franka Potente, Joaquim de Almeida
Synopsis:
The story of Guevara's year-long campaign in the Bolivian countryside, from his departure with Castro's blessing to his betrayal by Bolivian campesinos.
Review:
Based on diary entries kept by the film's subject, the screenplay is of necessity episodic and selective about those days' events it includes, but the results are not without being at times hard to follow or simply without (apparent) consequence. Nor is this state of affairs helped by the fact that in uniform the guerrillas all tend to resemble one another more or less, and it is hard to keep up with all the names. Nevertheless, on the credit side, this is an absorbing account of what seems a doomed campaign (without much more than a handful of trained men Che hoped to encourage the peasant population, weakened and demoralised and preoccupied by their own material needs, to some kind of armed uprising). By dint of exhaustive detail and close quarter acquaintance one begins to feel somehow implicated in this long march, and Del Toro strikes just the right balance between humanity and authority, always rational, always patient even when reprimanding his men. It is interesting that American involvement, which one always tended to think material in his downfall, is limited to a scene in which CIA encourage the President to hunt Guevara down ruthlessly. Whether the omission is such because it is not something Guevara would have known and therefore not within the limited scope of the scenario is possible, but it is telling that there is a sweaty close-up of the soldier who volunteers to be the one to shoot him, and one of the last shots is of a helicopter, almost certainly provided by the USA, carrying Che's body out of the jungle. Soderbergh and his team have worked a fine piece of art out of the rigours of their location shoot.