Che, the film

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Soderbergh made a mistake in basing the film on Che's drab, colorless writings.  Biopics are usually pretty bad - you have a choice of making the person look like a plaster saint (Gandhi, Milk), a sanitized puff piece (Ray, Walk the Line), or some schlockly tell-all expose (Mommie Dearest).  Che (1&2) made him more plaster than plaster saint.  It's a shame, really, because a nuanced portrait would have been great.  Still, I was interested in Part 1, because it's not like there are a zillion movies out there on the subject matter (I Am Cuba is the best).  The second part was a depressing single-note slog.  You'd never know, for example, that while Che was camped out in the Bolivian jungle, he was sending amusing letters to his kids in Cuba about a fictional crocodile.

Best biopics out there:  Lawrence of Arabia, Capote and I'm Not There.

Re:  Che's daughter, this is kind of interesting:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/may/03/cuba.angeliquechrisafis

and

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39503

Laura



-----Original Message-----
>From: Lawrence Bryan <lebryan at speakeasy.net>
>Sent: Feb 7, 2009 6:49 AM
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Che, the film
>
>
>I saw the film Thursday night. On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give it a 4.
>
>It was shot in both color and black and white, the latter with  
>snippets of Che's visit to NY and his appearance at the UN. Since  for  
>some really ridiculous reason they used a shaky hand held camera  
>(Death to Rules 2 and 3 of the Dogme Brethern, IMO) with the usual  
>extreme closeups in the B&W New York scenes, I was forced to decide  
>wether to risk vomiting in the theatre and watch the screen or close  
>my eyes and listen to the Spanish dialog which I couldn't understand.  
>I tried compromising by using my hand to blank out all but the  
>subtitles at the bottom. That allowed the nausea to be lessened below  
>the barfing stage, leaving me with only a vague feeling of discomfort  
>for the rest of the film, over four hours. Bleh.
>
>See Che run through the jungle from left to right.
>See Che run through the jungle from right to left.
>See Che shoot people.
>See Che smoking a huge cigar. (Especial one B&W close up where the  
>cigar was two thirds of the screen)
>See Che get assassinated after getting captured.
>
>Really too bad as I have a great deal of respect for what I know of  
>the man.
>
>Lawrence
>
>