Review: Sicario (2015)

* * * 1/2
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin

"Nothing will make sense to your American ears, and you will doubt everything you do." The world depicted in Denis Villeneuve's Sicario is one of chaos and pain, a world in which a good person trying to do the right thing in the right way doesn't stand a chance, though they won't realize it until the point where they're so completely beaten down that there's basically nothing left. It's a bleak movie, is what I'm saying, but it's also a powerful one that rivals Traffic in its depiction of the impact of the drug trade from both sides of the border between the US and Mexico. Like Villeneuve's Prisoners, this is a white-knuckle ride into the darker aspects of humanity and it's not for the feint of heart.

Review: Che Part Two: Guerilla (2008)

* * * 1/2
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Benicio Del Torro

After seeing The Argentine and being… not disappointed, exactly, but certainly underwhelmed, I wasn’t sure what to expect from Guerilla, the second part of the Che Guevara saga. Objectively I can see how Guerilla’s flaws are probably about equal to those of The Argentine, but subjectively I enjoyed the former much more than the latter. Guerilla perhaps benefits from the fact that the fall is infinitely more fascinating than the rise, but I also think that it’s the stronger half of the story and able to stand on its own.

Guerilla picks up several years after The Argentine leaves off. In the interim Che (Benicio Del Torro) has divorced his first wife, married Aleida (Catalina Sandino Moreno) and had three children with her, participated in guerrilla activities in the Congo, and disappeared from Cuba, leaving behind a letter of farewell to Fidel Castro. Officially, his whereabouts are unknown, though in reality he has disguised himself in order to sneak into Bolivia where he intends to duplicate his success in Cuba. With a small force behind him he once again heads into the mountains, training peasants, strategizing, and attempting to elude capture by the Bolivian army, which is being backed by the U.S. Although there are several setbacks, Che remains defiantly true to his belief that he will be able to overthrow the current regime and install a government that will tend to the welfare of the poorest citizens.

There are problems, however, and at the root of them are those very citizens. They distrust Che and his men, many of whom are Cuban, and don’t consider his fight to be theirs. They don’t wish to take up arms and join his ranks and they are reluctant to help him, although sometimes powerless to stop him. One of the reasons I feel that this film is stronger than its predecessor is that The Argentine tends to whitewash Che, while this film presents him in a darker light. In one scene he and his men come to a farm in order to get food, taking away some livestock but giving the farmers money. The farmers would rather keep their livestock because they and their children are hungry and there’s no market nearby which basically renders the money useless. The revolutionaries insist on taking what they’ve come for and being unarmed and outnumbered, the farmers have no choice. Bullied on one side by the army and on the other by the revolutionaries, who feel no need to try to “win” the people over and instead waltz in with a heavy sense of entitlement, it’s easy to understand why the peasants would rather stay out of it than rally to the side of the revolution. When you factor in that Bolivia had already had a revolution and that the peasants were still poor, overworked, and unable to get medical treatment, it’s easy to understand why they think the fight is pointless.

Still, Che persists, determined to see revolution in Bolivia so that he can move on to the next country and then the next until all of Latin America is free. The film watches as he slowly unravels, as illness leaves him almost incapacitated, as his forces are separated, as the numbers dwindle due to death and abandonment of the cause, as the people who will ostensibly benefit from the revolution refuse it. In one particularly brutal scene he takes his frustrations out on a horse. By the end, death seems almost merciful.

Once again, Del Torro’s performance is what wins the day. The Che of The Argentine was a man who slowly gained confidence in himself as a leader; the Che of Guerilla is a man who has perhaps bought too much stock in his own hype and can only grit his teeth as the market takes a tumble. He enters the Bolivian stage as if simply being Che is enough to ensure victory and realizes too late that having proved himself to the people of Cuba means nothing to the people of Bolivia, whose help and support are just as necessary to victory as the cash and armaments he gets from Castro and other allies.

Stylistically, Guerilla differs only slightly from The Argentine. Gone are the black-and-white interview/U.N. segments and instead there is just a single, linear storyline marking the hundreds of days that Che spends in Bolivia. The photography is slightly darker, reflecting the less favourable outcome of this adventure, and the pacing is somewhat slower, although perhaps it simply seems that way because the main narrative isn’t broken up as it is in The Argentine. Guerilla also has some distracting casting (Lou Diamond Phillips, Franke Potente, and most bizarrely Matt Damon), but by and large I feel that it carries its flaws much more easily than The Argentine.

Review: Che Part One: The Argentine (2008)

* * *
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Benicio Del Torro

My original intention was to review both parts of Steven Soderbergh's epic in one review but since that would have made for a post that was way too long, and since I feel that there are enough differences in style and quality between the two to consider them as seperate films, I'll be reviewing The Argentine today and Guerilla tomorrow.

The Argentine opens in Mexico in 1955 when Che (Benicio Del Torro) meets Fidel Castro (Demien Bichir) and gets involved in his plans for revolution in Cuba. Suffering from debilitating bouts of asthma, Che ventures into the mountains to join the revolutionaries already gathered there and take a commanding role. His status as a foreigner makes the others distrust him and some refuse to take orders from him. Not quite comfortable yet with his role in the revolution, Che refuses to push the issue and quietly accepts this insubordination, which earns him a reprimand from Castro when he finally joins them. Slowly, as their forces grow thanks to various peasant volunteers, Che becomes more at ease in his role as a leader and a more commanding presence.

Intercut with the progress of the revolution is faux-documentary footage detailing an interview between Che and American journalist Lisa Howard (Julia Ormond), and his 1964 address before the United Nations General Assembly. These scenes, shot in black-and-white as a contrast to the lush photography of the guerrilla narrative, explore Che the celebrity, invited to parties, revered by some and reviled by others. His speech at the United Nations is passionate and accusatory, making it clear that as far as he’s concerned his work is not done yet and won’t be until revolution spreads all the way through Latin America. Still wearing his green uniform, he could not be more of a contrast with the other U.N. representatives, and it is apparent that he sees his place as being out in the field and Guerilla will see him return to that life.

If you go into this film hoping to gain a clear understanding of Che the man, you’ll probably come out disappointed. Soderbergh keeps us at a distance from him both literally and figuratively, often filming him in long shots and focusing almost exclusively on Che as a soldier, strategist and political figure. His personal life figures into the story only in a brief mention of a wife back in Mexico and in the suggestion of a relationship developing between him and fellow soldier Aleida (Catalina Sandino Moreno). I think this is a smart way to go about telling story because so often biographical films get so focused on the sex lives of their subjects that they lose sight of what really makes those subjects interesting in the first place. With Che, it’s his politics and his role as a revolutionary and the way that his public image has taken on a life of its own. Since Che is so heavily steeped in symbolism in popular culture, it makes sense to me to maintain that distance in the film.

As Che, Del Torro is able to hit several different notes to render a full and rich performance. As a soldier he’s measured and calm, as a doctor he’s gentle and caring, and as a politician he’s ferocious as he expounds on the injustices of the world. Though the film keeps him at arm’s length, Del Torro is nevertheless able to connect with the audience in a very real way, conveying Che’s early insecurities and his difficulties in terms of his health. He doesn’t necessarily make Che a sympathetic character, but he’s able to go beyond the iconic image to make him human.

The Argentine is a solid effort, though it doesn’t completely succeed. There is an unfinished feeling to it and as it reaches the end, it feels less like a conclusion than a deep intake of breath as it prepares to start telling you the story of Guerilla. Unlike Guerilla, it doesn’t really stand up as a film on its own, which may be due to the fact that the Che biopic was originally conceived as being only the story told in Guerilla with everything that takes place in The Argentine being added after Terrence Malick dropped out and was replaced by Soderbergh. Since one half had considerably more time to develop than the other, it makes sense that that half should also be just a little bit stronger.