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QPIX STUDENTS ARE TROPFEST FINALISTS
Graduates of QPIX’s 2011 Diploma of Production course have won their way into the finals of TROPFEST, the world’s largest short film festival, with their student production PHOTOBOOTH. Set in the Afghanistan conflict, PHOTOBOOTH is one of a sequence of...
'Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu' Out February 10
(Nationwide)
Over The Fence Comedy Film Deadline
(Nationwide)
Rottofest 2012: Call For Entries Now Open!
(Nationwide)
latest news
Geoffrey Rush Joins Tropfest
The acclaimed actor and newly-crowned Australian of the Year, Geoffrey Rush, will be a key player in 2012’s Tropfest activities.
Naomi Watts To Play Princess Diana
The Aussie actress is set to play the people’s princess in an upcoming film that chronicles the final two years of Diana’s life.
Sullivan Stapleton Signs On To ‘300’ Prequel
The Aussie actor has beat out the competition to land a role in the upcoming blockbuster.
James Cameron Loses Long Time Australian Collaborators
Producer Andrew Wight and cinematographer Mike deGruy lose their lives in a helicopter crash.
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Viva La Revolucion
FILMINK’s MIFF correspondent gives us the latest on the festival’s fantastic films.
You know when you're walking down the street and you spot an angst ridden fourteen year-old wearing a Ramones t-shirt, yet you know if their iPod came to life and belted them in the eardrum with Sheena is a Punk Rocker that they wouldn't know what they were listening to? You kind of feel that's the same with the countless amount of ignorant hipsters who traipse around sporting Che Guevara t-shirts, berets, and satchels - while they know this Che fellow had something to do with Cuba and the Revolution, they don't actually have any clue what he really did.
Well enter teacher and director Steven Soderbergh, the man behind the Ernesto ‘Che' Guevara biopic, which stars Benicio Del Toro in the role of the uber-iconic Revolutionary. Split into two films, Che Part 1 (The Argentine) and Che Part 2 (Guerrilla), this ambitious telling of his story spans over a decade of Che's life, and you could say that it picks up a few years after Walter Salles' 2004 film The Motorcycle Diaries left off. The film premiered in Cannes in 2008 as a single, four and a half hour film, but has since been repackaged as two separate films.
Che Part One (The Argentine) begins in 1956 when the young Argentinean doctor and a select group of Cuban exiles, led by Fidel Castro, start a grassroots guerrilla warfare campaign, with the ultimate aim of ousting the US-aligned leader Fulgencio Batista and bringing freedom and independence to Cuba. The three years of fighting, which ends in obvious victory, intercuts with New York in 1964, where Che visits the United Nations to address the world about the plight of his adopted country and further promise to bring the same sovereignty to the rest of Latin America. Che Part Two (Guerrilla) picks up a year later with Che already established as this celebrity revolutionary figure, as he embarks on bringing the revolution to Bolivia by overthrowing the country's government. The doomed mission ends with Che's death in 1966. Part Two is based on the actual diary Che kept during the campaign.
Not surprisingly, Soderbergh doesn't follow the prototypical biopic formula with both Che instalments, apart from the possible exclusion of some of the uglier moments of Guevara's life in this period. There is no narrative build-up - no Che in his younger days as an idealistic young doctor, no romances, no internal conflicts, etc... Rather, what makes this a fascinating study is the fact that Soderbergh seems more focused on the smaller, more modest moments that, while seemingly innocuous and irrelevant, allow us to really understand the power of the man and how he was able to do what he did.
For example, in Che Part One there is a scene in which Che and his men are taking respite in the jungles of Cuba, and the Commandant politely requests that one of his soldiers do some homework (Che has a greater hope that every person in Latin America be literate). The soldier responds to Che that he is too tired to work. In reply, Che just stares down the young, illiterate subordinate, who quickly pulls out his pencil and paper and gets to work. In another scene, before preparing to go on television for an interview, Che is asked if he wants any make-up. He shakes his head, a wry smile on his face, only to change his mind a few seconds later by saying "Maybe a little powder". From his struggles with his asthma to his continued work as a doctor, it's the view through all these smaller windows which effectively give the audience the larger scope of the man.
Del Toro is nothing short of extraordinary as Che, commanding every single frame with a powerful and dignified integrity. You really feel this is the man Del Toro was born to portray on screen, and anyone less in the role would have been, well, less. The figure of Guevara is an interesting yet foreign one to most people, but Del Toro plays him in such a way that he makes Che familiar and identifiable to the audience, without being overtly emotional. Del Toro is said to have done years of research for the role, from reading personal writings of the man, to interviews with members of his family and even a five minute encounter with Fidel Castro. The fact that Del Toro wasn't nominated for an Oscar for this role is quite perplexing.
It is also quite remarkable that both films combined were shot over 76 days, and with a budget of only US $58 million - you could have doubled each figure and I would have believed it (you'll understand once you see both films). Seeing both films back to back however was a little much, and there are moments in Che Part Two that do drag, and you're not totally sure which direction you're being taken. As a whole though, this ambitious project is definitely worth a viewing if not for the array of wicked facial hair.
Che Part One (The Argentine) next screens Tuesday August 4, 4:45pm, Kino Cinema, Collins Street
Che Part Two (Guerilla) next screens Wednesday August 5, 4:30pm Kino Cinema, Collins Street
The films will also be released in cinemas in October.