this afternoon i had the privilage of seeing steven soderbergh's epic biography of eduardo ''che'' guevara in one piece on the big screen. the entire film lasts just under 5 hours, and features a 15 minute scored intermission and credit booklet.
five hours for a single feature is a new record theatrically for myself, yet the hours flew by. in fact i would actually compare it favourably to the running time of "australia" in a way, as both are big screen epics that iv seen recently.
benicio del toro is amazing in the title role, to put it simply. he embodies the character, and indeed the figure in a way that i cant imagine anyone else doing so. why there hasnt been as much acclaim im not sure, its one of the strongest lead roles iv seen in a long time. in terms of differences in the character between the two films, che is much more prominent in the first part, whereas hes slightly more in the background in the second. i like to think of the first film as the introduction to the character, both literally and figuritively, whereas the second one explores the influence of the man, again both literally and figuritively. the supporting cast is as epic as the running time, with all proving worthy counterparts to del toro, with santiago cabrera proving a bit of a stand out as one of che's cuban comrades. an appearance from matt damon as a middle aged german preacher proved popular too.
"che" is soderbergh's return to form, after a pretty poor 8 year run (his last truly great film being 2000's "traffic", incidently del toro's finest role to date). drawing comparisons to pontecorvo's "the battle of algiers", alongside the work of terrence malick, the film (s) proves a real joy, is genuinely exhilerating and the first of what is looking to be a great first month of 2009.
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