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Set aside ideological biases and political prejudices. Put aside for a moment the hero, the icon, the face from Alberto Korda's famous photo, an effigy printed on millions of t-shirts and flags rigorously displayed at the May 1st concert, and a symbol of an ideology now at the service of capitalist consumerism.
Steven Soderbergh, after seven years of research and documentation, provides you with another version of Dr. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna. Four hours of careful, detailed, at times meticulous, documentary-style biography, divided into two episodes: the first, the subject of the review, on his participation in the Cuban revolution, from the landing at Playa de las Coloradas to the capture of Santa Clara, and the reconstruction of the speech delivered at the United Nations, as Minister of Industry in Castro's government; the second, "Guerrilla", set on the battlefields of the Bolivian forest until his death in 1967.
"The Argentine" begins with the meeting in Mexico of Ernesto Guevara and Fidel Castro (a Demián Bichir with an almost hypnotic gesturality) and quickly continues with the landing in Cuba of the 82 rebels aiming for the overthrow of dictator Fulgencio Batista. The action continues in the jungle of the Sierra Maestra where the ranks of the July 26 Movement grow thanks to spontaneous enlistment. The story through episodes described in the "Diary of the Cuban Revolution" alternates, in a succession of flashbacks, with the black and white of an interview given in New York during the 1964 visit and with the famous speech attacking U.S. imperialism held at the UN, concluded with the famous proclamation "Patria o muerte." With these inserts, it almost seems as if Guevara's words act as an explanation and ideological basis for the actions of the liberation struggle with which they alternate. This choice to represent guerrilla actions in a raw and realistic manner, but fragmented into microepisodes, makes the reconstruction lose effectiveness, intensity, and pathos.
In all this alternation of action fragments and proverbial "slow moments" (a few yawns escape), not a mention of Guevara's upbringing and youth, no attempt to provide a clarification of the reasons that drove a young, educated Argentine from a good family to fight alongside Cuban peasants, no explanation for his dedication to the project of extending armed struggle to the rest of Latin America, no reference to the historical context of USA-USSR opposition or the Castro government's relations with the Soviet Union.
The interpretation of Che by Benicio Del Toro (with a surprising physical resemblance) focuses on human traits: asthma attacks and the smoking cigar; restlessness and ambition; firmness and coherence; boldness and honesty; love for freedom and justice and fragility; but, above all, the charisma that embodies the hopes of a people who, after the capture of Santa Clara, will acclaim him as a hero.
The project was ambitious and, at the moment, does not seem to have been entirely fulfilled... The atypical and fragmented framework does not pay off. We'll see with the second part.
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