Film review: Che, Part One

On Monday I had the pleasure to watch a screening of part one of Steven Sonderberg new movie Che. As the title suggests it is based on the revolutionary life of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, who is played brilliantly by Benicio Del Toro. It is a political movie on a par with Warren Beatty’s Reds, which looked at the life of the US communist John Read. Although Che has much less of the feel of Hollywood about it, in many ways it is a far more radical movie than Reds. 

It covers the period from when Che first met Fidel Castro in Mexico and joined his 26th of July Movement, it briefly moves on to the Granma, the leaky tub that transported the revolutionaries to Cuba and then concentrates on the role Guevara played in the campaign to liberate Cuba from the grip of Batista and the yankee dollar. First working as a doctor then given a command by Castro of a column. The final part of the film centers on Guevara’s role in the break out from the Sierra Maetstra mountains and the movie ends with Che by now a  Comandante, commanding a large column which took the strategically important city of Santa Clara, which left the road to Havana clear and the door of the Capital open. It is stirring stuff.

Whilst all this is going on the film is interspersed with Guevara’s visit to New York and his speech to the General Assembly along with quotes from his writing. Che is portrayed as a hard task master but he drove no one more than himself. Guevara was determined that those former, often illiterate  peasants who fought alongside him, if they survived, should become far more than cannon fodder, they would become the embryo of a new revolutionary order. Military skills was not all they learnt at the feet of Che, learning to read and write etc became an equal priority. For example he is seen upbraiding a young semi literate guerrilla for not doing his studies, and when the youngsters shrugs, demanding he be left alone to sleep, Che is at him, ordering him to get his notebook and sit alongside him so they can together go over his maths. Guevara absolute love for humanity shines through in this scene, yet the whole scene is portrayed simply and without theatrics or Hollywood kitsch.

I use the word love carefully and not only because Guevara used it himself, but because it is the single most important element middle class people who become revolutionaries must possess. We Working class militants base our class consciousness on pure class hatred, it cannot be otherwise as due to our life experiences, we despise and hate a system that delegates the role of cart horse to us before we are even born and does all it can to see we abide by the role the ruling class have chosen for us. The system refused to educate us to an adequate level then uses its control of the mass media to denigrate us for our ignorance and foolishness. Whereas middle class people are beneficiaries of the very system that imprisons us in ignorance and superstitions. Thus if middle class revolutionaries do not posses a great love for the mass of humanity they cannot become confident fighters in the same trench as the working classes and dispossessed.

Throughout the film Che is seen struggling with bad health and it is clear it is only sheer will power and a hatred for oppression and no matter how much cynics may scoff, yes love that drove him as a revolutionary. He is displayed as a man with a great and a vicious hatred of the oppression and exploitation that he has seen throughout the American continent, behind which he rightly saw US imperialism and its political gofers.

Sonderberg brings to life the young men and women who, unlike many on todays left, believed they could win power if they were bold enough to reach out for it and grab it with both hands. They fought and died not for they own benefit or for power itself. But they understood clearly the only way they could halt the degradation billions of people throughout the world face daily was to make a start building a more equitable society in Cuba; and where better than on Uncle Sam’s door step.

The Castro brothers come to life under Sonderberg’s direction Rodrego Santoro who plays Raul is an especially astute portrayal, as to is Santiago Cabrera as Comandante Camilo Cienfuego whose performance highlights the exuberance of youth of the men and women who were making history as members of the 26^th of July movement.

If I have one criticism, it is this, many of those who fought alongside Che are still alive, Sonderberg missed an opportunity by not repeating Beatty’s device in Reds when he interspersed the movie with real life characters who new John Read well. A recent TV documentary entitled Cuba Africa Revolution* interviewed many of those Che fought alonside in the Sierra Maetstra and on the road to Santa Clara and beyond. Many of whom went on to join him in African and in Bolivia. It would have been great to put real life faces to the young men in the movie.

Soderberg draws heavily on Jon Lee Anderson's book Che Guevara, A revolutionary life, who is credited as an advisor, and the film is all the better for that, as it is a magnificent tome which all progressives should read. I cannot wait for Che Part Two and I am certain that this film will create a new interest in Guevara and the politics he professed.

Enjoy.