Description
Che Guevara, the man with the beret with the star, embodies one of the strongest myths of the 20th century. He was a combination of a saint and an adventurer; somewhere between Don Quixote and a latter-day Jesus Christ. In his relations with Fidel Castro, he is the hero of a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. Che Guevara became a symbol of an entire generation. Today he is a myth. Some still draw inspiration from him - others condemn him; sometimes bitterly. For all, he is a subject of controversy and passion. This film examines the myth, and contains: His voyages of discovery through Latin America, the meeting with Fidel Castro, when an instantaneous friendship was born, his travels around the world, and footage of his tragic end in Bolivia at age 39.

Special Bonus Feature: Tracing Che. In this documentary, a Canadian film director goes in search of the man behind the myth, re-creating the legendary road trip through South America on an old Norton motorcycle that Che documented in The Motorcycle Diaries. On his way, he encounters many of Che's family and friends - including the friend who took the trip with him - who shed light on the truth behind this icon of the 20th century. This is a film that discovers the humanity, the passion, and the free spirit of a young 22 year old whose eyes were forced open on a relentless road trip.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 31 reviews)

Capt Nemo

I just saw this documentary. My parents fled Cuba in 1960 when my affluent grandparents were disposed of almost everything they owned. I grew up knowing Che the butcher of La Cabana, after seeing this documentary I was struck how much Che was like Capt Nemo from Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Whether Che was a Stalinist/Maoist figure or a misguided Quixotic figure is up to history to decide. Sadly his legacy in Cuba today is a broken, ruined country that was once one of the most prosperous in Latin America. The big building in Havana with his image on it is the HQ of the DGI, Cuba's secret police.
March 16, 2008

From a face on a handbag to a real person.

I don't admire Che Guevara but I'm not particularly interested in bashing him either. In fact, I really didn't know much about him at all other than he had something to do with making Cuba what it is today, and a certain image of him appears on all sorts of fashion accessories for some reason. So, I watched this documentary hoping to learn something.

And, indeed I did. This is what a documentary should be: organized, narrated, and with a wealth of historical footage that I never knew existed. Now I consider myself at least "Che literate", and as an asthma sufferer myself I found myself empathizing with him on a certain level. I can't imagine what it must have been like dealing with asthma before the modern anti-asthma drugs were developed.

So, without writing an editorial on Che Guevara the person, and sticking to this DVD, I would just recommend that anyone who wants to wear a Che T-shirt or carry a Che handbag at least view this first and learn a little about the man whose face they're decorating themselves with.
October 26, 2007

A Prized Possession

After having a chance to see this documentary (several times) it has become for me a prized possession. Without a doubt, it is one of the most riveting tales I've ever watched. It explores a group of revolutionaries who display boundless courage amid great personal sacrifice in order to realize an almost insane dream. All this is done against the seemingly insurmountable and savagely brutal forces of the Batista regime that terrorized the Cuban masses with the support of the U.S.

At the center of the whirlwind of change were Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. While Fidel had finite ambitions, El Che sought a utopia. This was the main difference between the two and as fate would have it, it is largely the reason while Fidel still survives and El Che does not. This is something that no one with a passion for justice and equality can watch just once. It is treasure to have a documentary like this recorded about such a pivotal figure in human history.
July 30, 2007

Great documentary

Very objective in nature. There are photos and footage never seen about Che Guevara's life. An educational piece of art.
May 31, 2007

Not a lot new, but good solid documentary

Like most student radical wannabes, I went through a Che Guevara stage. Initially I started wearing Che Guevara T-shirts just because it got approval from all the right sort of people, and also managed to upset all the people I wanted to upset. However as a history nerd and bookworm, it wasn't too long before I had spent a couple nights in the library reading up on everything Che related.

There's a lot to admire about Che Guevara. However the fact that he presided over firing squads is always a bit troubling. The documentary mentions this briefly and (because this was originally a French film) compares Che's revolutionary zeal to Saint Just.

The more I thought about it, the comparison seems apt on many levels. Perhaps Che Guevara was the Saint Just of the 20th Century. Both were renowned for their good looks and eloquence. Both were famous for being the right hand man of someone else. Both were absolutely convinced of the justice of the justice of their actions and both left a violent legacy which is somewhat at odds with their humanitarian rhetoric. Both were captured, executed, and after their death both became either matyrs to some and demons to others.

The film implies that Che only ordered the execution of Batista's former torturers, and that he was under tremendous pressure from the population to do so. I'm going to have to double check this, because I was under the impression that some political dissidents were included in those executions as well. (Or can someone out there set me straight?)

Even if the executed were all former torturers, I think the Cuban revolution would have done better to do as Sandinista leader Tomas Borge who, after the revolution in Nicaragua,
walked into the prison and found the national guard soldiers of Somoza who had castrated him, had killed his wife, and had forced him to watch while seventeen men gang raped and then killed his daughter. Borge embraced them and told them he forgave them, and let them go free.

Or follow the advice of Thomas Paine, who once said before the French Revolutionary convention, "[When future historians talk about this revolution] I would rather report 100 errors of mercy than 1 error of vengeance" (unfortunately the French didn't listen to him either).

But do I feel guilty for wearing Che Guevara shirts? I suppose no more than I feel about wearing Calvin College shirts, even though John Calvin had Michael Servitus burned at the stake. I believe it is possible to embrace the ideals a man stood for without having to defend every low point of his life. (As Saint Just was being lead to the guillotine, he pointed to a copy of "The Rights of Man" on the wall and said, "At least you'll still have this to thank us for.")

All this is only 2 minutes of the film, but I wanted to get this discussion out of the way before moving on to the rest of documentary.

As mentioned above, I didn't learn a lot new from this film. Someone who didn't know anything about Che Guevara would probably get a lot more out of the film. Nevertheless it was an enjoyable enough 90 minutes. As with any documentary film, the best part is the old documentary footage that you can't see by reading a book. Unfortunately, like a lot of documentaries, this film relied more on interviews than old video clips, but there was some footage of Che Guevara as a child (apparently his dad was one of the few people back then who had a home video camera). And of course footage of the famous bearded cigar smoking Che triumphant after the revolution. And some footage from the trial of Regis Debray in Bolivia. (Again perhaps because this is a French film, there is an emphasis Regis Debray's trial).

The part of the movie I found most interesting was about Che's adventures in the Belgian Congo, brief though that part was, because it was something I knew nothing about.

I would recommend this film, but I suppose recommending a documentary is pointless. If you like documentaries, and if you are interested in the subject matter, than I imagine you'll seek this out regardless of my recommendation or lack of. And if you don't like documentaries, then there's not really much of a point, is there?

May 11, 2007

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Fidel: The Untold Story
Directed by Estela Bravo
Starring Fidel Castro, Harry Belafonte, EliÃ¡n GonzÃ¡lez (II), Alice Walker, Angela Davis
FIRST RUN FEATURES

CHE: Rise and Fall (Che Guevara: The Documentary)
by Soledad Liendo
Directed by Eduardo Montes-Bradley
Starring Alberto Granados, Alberto Castellanos
Patagonia Film Group, LLC.

The Motorcycle Diaries (Widescreen Edition)
Directed by Walter Salles
Starring Gael García Bernal, Rodrigo De la Serna, Mercedes Morán, Jean Pierre Noher, Lucas Oro
Universal Studios

Fidel
by Checco Varese, David V. Picker, Guy Hibbert, Jose Ludlow, Kevin Cooper, Mariano Carranco, Stephen Tolkin
Directed by David Attwood
Starring Víctor Huggo Martin, Gael García Bernal, Patricia Velasquez, Cecilia Suárez, Maurice Compte
Lions Gate

Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
by Jon Lee Anderson