Long Night's Jouney Into Revolution.

CHE (PARTS ONE AND TWO). It seems to me that Che (trailer) as a movie is much like Ernesto Che Guevara, the manwhose life it portrays: There is much to like and there is much to critique. First of all, let's get one thing clear: Cinema 21 is not the best place to watch a 4-and-a-half-hour movie. No theater that is that uncomfortable and has that tiny of a restroom should house a movie that has an intermission. Nor should one see that long of a movie because by the end I was having to constantly change positions and move my feet to keep myself from nodding off. On a bright note, they had beer! Only three varieties -- Stella Artois and then an IPA and an amber. $4.50. At the end of the show Steven Sorderbergh talked about the movie for about a half an hour or so, which was definitely worth staying for. Although like the movie itself, I will split this into two pieces with the second being a response to some things he said that I found a bit troubling.

Aside from the difficult involved in watching the movie, there is so much that I could say. I'll have to start with what struck me from the beginning: this movie was beautifully shot. Soderbergh shoots his own movies much of the time and did so with this on new, ultra-portable, hi-res digital cameras and it was a great choice. Hand-held cameras get overused and can seem cliche, but here I thought the way the camera followed them through the jungles and the fighting made me feel like a viewer as if I was there. Because of that intimacy, at the end I could feel the sense of failure that was surrounding Che and his men in Bolivia. From the very beginning of the movie, though, I knew I was in for a great-looking movie as one of the first shots of Che smoking in black-and-white sixties portion was breathtaking. It goes from his mouth to his eyes in such a graceful sweep that really seemed to go right into his personality. It didn't hurt that Benicio Del Toro really poured himself into that character. Soderbergh said afterward that it was an example of the rare occassion when you just have the right actor at the right time playing the right role and it is magical. He was certainly right here as I didn't think Del Toro did not have any emotional stuff to work with in order to connect to Che but did a phenomenal job of channeling his motivations so no matter what he was doing, everything made sense.

The movie also scores twice for my personal preference when it comes to biopics. I prefer that they focus on one element of a person's life instead of trying to tell the whole story, which often seems to lack a focus. It's the difference between a good movie like Capote compared to a weak movie like Ray. Or, to connect it to Che, a phenomenal movie like The Motorcycle Diaries, a film that explored a trip a young Ernesto Guevara took through South America that formed the worldview that spawned a revolutionary. In this movie it happened twice with the first part being pretty focused on the Cuban revolution and the second his failed guerilla war in Bolivia. Although I did feel like there was more that I could know about Che, the story that Soderbergh told was complete.

So why is it not a complete success? Like nearly every movie from last year, it is deeply flawed. The greatest flaw from my view is how indulgent it is, both in the character and in the filmmaking. To take up the latter first, it was too long. I don't say that becuse I sat through it all at once but becaues at times the scenes in the jungle were sapped of their drama by following the details of their training and movement too much. I do not want to see all of this removed, but in both movies I think the editing could have been tightened and we could have easily lost a half hour or so at least from the total length. Now I'm not saying to cut it all down and make it one movie. You will probably note that much of that minutia is what made the movie great, but you can have too much of a good thing. Also indulgent was the treatment of the character, which I think did fail to place him in context. It was seen as if anyone and anything against Che were either ridiculous or exploitive. Soderbergh claims the negative side of Che is supposed to come out in the UN portions of the first movie, but I thought that exactly the opposite happened and it portrayed those who opposed him as either hysterical protestors or out-of-touch diplomats. It was not a deal-breaker here for me, but I thought the movie could have used more context so as to not put it at risk of being inaccurate.

That's what I thought. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on it and also how well you did staying awake and comfortable for the whole thing. Also, The Motorcycle Diaries or Che? Which one would you pick?