We missed our proper screening to “Che” (who can sacrifice four hours in a work day?), but we did already see the two films at the Toronto Film Festival in September. No matter, we’re completely willing to pay to see this in theaters in another one-go sitting if only just to show our support of this fine and stellar film.
The Steven Soderbergh-directed epic finally has itself an official U.S. trailer via IFC films after months of waiting through Spanish-language and international trailers that were usually crappy versions for YouTube (though there was one solid U.K. one).
The release plan for the film is this: starting on December 12th, the two films will play in New York and L.A. for one week as one four hour long film with an intermission. Following that, “Che” will re-open on January 9th in New York and Los Angeles as two separate admissions titled “Che Part 1: The Argentine” and “Che Part 2: Guerilla.” The national rollout for 25 markets will begin January 16 and 22 and will expand further after that. For those that would rather absorb it all at home, IFC will make the films available OnDemand on January 21, making it available to 50 million homes nationwide on all major cable and satellite providers in both standard and high definition versions.
“The Argentine” centers on the South American revolutionary’s campaign to overthrown the U.S.-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1956. “Guerilla” picks up nine years later in 1965 and chronicles Guevara’s failed attempt to incite the same type of revolutionary campaign in Bolivia, resulting in his death at the hands of the C.I.A backed government. You must see both films to get the full story and go see them one at a time if you must, but go see them.
If “Lawrence Of Arabia” and “Dr. Zhivago” are considered multiple-Oscar-winning epics. Why does the length of “Che” seem so intimidating? ‘Arabia’ is 227 mins (3.7 hours) and ‘Zhivago’ is 197 mins (3. 2) hours and they’re beloved. “Che” is not that much longer and is not the grueling experience some are making it out to be. In fact, we were engaged by every single minute; it’s easily in our top 10 films of the year, no doubt. The films are unsentimental, matter-of-fact, but captivating and immersing; they’re like you’re embedded with Che’s camps in both countries. Benicio del Toro won the Best Actor award at the Cannes film festival earlier this year and while most Oscar hopes for this film seem out of reach, dear god, someone at least give del Toro a Best Oscar Nomination in recognition of the sprawling and amazing scope and vision of this film. We’d love to see Soderbergh nab a Best Director nomination, but that will never happen. Demian Bechir who plays Fidel Castro is also incredible in the films. Look for cameos and small roles by Matt Damon, Franka Potente and Lou Diamond Phillips in “Guerilla” and the “Borne Ultimatum” hitman Édgar Ramírez in “The Argentine.”
One last note: we haven’t gotten around to reading the Peter Buchman-penned script (his C.V isn’t so hot, he wrote, “Jurassic Park III” and “Eragon”), but we did get throug about 20 pages of “The Argentine” and they were almost drastically different from what was on screen. Maybe our draft is an early one, but they seemed to have some of the one-the-nose conventions that Soderbergh purposely eschewed in his non-conventional biopic. The soundtrack (which is minimalist throughout both films – for the most part, aside from near the end of Part 2) is great and features a beautiful and simple score by Alberto Iglesias, is available now for pre-order now.
Oh and for those that really care, we just got our hands on a bootleg of “Che!” the 1969 version of the Guevara story starring Omar Sharif and Jack Palance. We can’t wait to dig into that, it’s not really readily available on any format these days.
