Che: Part Two-Guerilla (2008)

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General		Extras
Category	Biopic	Interviews-Crew-Interview with composer Alberto Iglesias Interviews-Crew-Interview with Che expert Jon Lee Anderson Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2008
Running Time	129:30 (Case: 127)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (82:49)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Steven Soderbergh
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Demián Bichir Rodrigo Santoro Benicio Del Toro Catalina Sandino Moreno María D. Sosa Raúl Beltrán Raúl 'Pitín' Gómez Paty M. Bellott
Case	Amaray-Opaque-Secure Clip
RPI	$34.95	Music	Alberto Iglesias

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Unknown	Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     The events of Che: Part Two - Guerrilla take place during 1966 and 1967. Guevara arrives in Bolivia disguised as a middle-aged representative of the Organization of American States hailing from Uruguay. The film shows events from the 341 days that Guevara spent in Bolivia. Initially, there is unity among Guevara's men however Guevara soon learns that the Bolivian peasants are not like the Cuban ones; they are quick to show their loyalty to the strongest political power, unlike the Cuban farmers who were so willing to join the July 26th Movement.

     The support of Che's soldiers is also unreliable, they are simply not resilient enough to cope with life in isolation in the Bolivian jungle. Guevara's intelligence sources are also unreliable; for example, Tamara "Tania" Bunke (played by Franka Potente, famous for her roles Run Lola Run and The Bourne Identity), Guevara's revolutionary contact, gives away their identity. Guevara's visiting friend, the French intellectual Regis Debray is captured at Muyupampa by members of the Bolivian army and tortured.

     Due to his chronic asthma and the lack of food and water, Guevara becomes ill. By the end some of Che's forces are killed by the Bolivian Army, ambushed at Vado del Yeso. Guevara is killed on October 9, 1967 and this event closes this 4 and 1/2 hour epic biopic on one of the most famous and charismatic cultural icons of the 20th Century. The following synopsis on the whole Che project is taken from my review of Che: Part One-The Argentine. After all, the films may have been released separately at the cinema but the reality is that Che should be viewed as one film.

     It took producer Laura Bickford and actor Benicio del Toro ten years to film this biopic on the life of Che Guevara. Originally the idea was to make a film on Guevara's attempt to spread the idea of political revolution in Bolivia based on Jon Lee Anderson's 1997 biography Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. When Bickford and del Toro learnt that director Terrence Malick was in Bolivia in 1966 working on a story about Che they asked him to write a screenplay. Malick did so until funding ran out and Malick subsequently went on to direct The New World in 2005. At this point the pair sought out Steven Soderbergh to direct. He had not been interested years before (the trio had worked together on Traffic in 2000 when the idea of Che had been discussed) but he agreed after Peter Buchman was commissioned to write a new screenplay.

     Buchman found that the story of Guevara's exploits in Bolivia needed context, so the story was expanded to include Guevara's involvement in the Cuban revolution in the late 1950s. Guevara's address to the UN in 1964 was also included so that the audience could better understand the ideology behind his desire to assist revolutionary factions in other countries. Why Guevara's exploits in Angola are left out therefore was always a mystery to me, until you realise that the initial premise of the film was to make one 2 hour film. It took quite some time for Buchman, del Toro and Soderbergh to revise the screenplay and decide to shoot the film in two parts; the first part, The Argentine required more research and revisions prior to shooting.

    Both parts of Che, Part One - The Argentine and Part Two - Guerrilla, were shot back-to-back for 39 days each. Part Two - Guerrilla was shot first in Spain, while Part One - The Argentine was shot in Puerto Rico and Mexico. Part One looks at Che Guevara's first meeting with Fidel Castro in Mexico City in 1955, his joining of the July 26th Movement (the name of the guerrilla movement led by Castro to overthrow the Batista government eventually in 1959), the organisation and training of guerrilla forces, the battle of Santa Clara and the march into Havana. Interspersed among these scenes of the Cuban uprising are scenes of Guevara's arrival in New York City in 1964, including his interview with Lisa Howard and his address to the United Nations General Assembly. The New York City scenes are cleverly shot in black-and-white stock footage format with intentional grain to make the scenes look historic.

     The funding for Che: Parts One and Two dried up when the decision was made to film entirely in Spanish. The aim of the filmmakers was to present a balanced account of the life of Che Guevara, and for this reason the film had to made in Spanish. Director Steven Soderbergh has not tried to make an over-dramatised account of Guevara's military conflicts; this is not a Hollywood account of the events of Guevara's life. If it was then Alberto Iglesias' score would be more emphatic and there would have been more instances of mood music used. Rather, Che is a dialogue-driven film made in an independent style, the style Soderbergh is renowned for. To date Che: Parts One and Two has made an $US18 million loss against what it cost to make, but I believe this film and Traffic are the types of movies that director Steven Soderbergh will be remembered for rather than for his big-budget Hollywood films such as Erin Brockovich or the Ocean's films.

Video

     Che: Part Two - Guerrilla was shot in a different style to Che: Part One - The Argentine. There were no tracking or dolly shots; rather a small crew was used for shooting in Spain, mainly with handheld Red One digital cameras.

     The aspect ratio of the film is 1:85:1, 16x9 enhanced for widescreen televisions.

     Che: Part Two is not as impressive on DVD as Che: Part One - The Argentine. This is mainly because the main presentation takes up only 5.02 gb of space on a dual-layered DVD with an average bitrate of 5.29 m/b per sec. There are instances where the average bitrate gets as low as 3.0 m/b per sec in Che: Part Two. With such low bitrates in some scenes, there is low level noise evident.

     The storyline of Che: Part Two, with the personal struggles of Guevara to establish functional working relationships amongst the Bolivian people, meant that the look of this film was muted. More close-ups were employed to heighten personal conflicts.

     There are no film artefacts in the video transfer because the film was shot digitally with a RED One camera in 4K.

     Subtitles are available for dialogue in Spanish but occasional dialogue in English is not subtitled. Subtitles are on by default when you choose to watch the film via the main menu; they can be switched off 'on-the-fly' with your DVD remote.

     The RSDL change occurs at 82:49 just before the scene change for 'Day 302'.

Video Ratings Summary

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Shadow Detail
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Audio

     Similarly to Che: Part One, there are two audio tracks in Spanish. The default option when you play the film is the Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded track at 224 kbps, but the better option is to choose to view the film with the other soundtrack, the Dolby Digital 5.1 track encoded at 448 kbps. You can choose soundtracks 'on-the-fly' from your DVD remote.

     Dialogue is clear and audio is synchronised.

     The sound design supports the sounds of the jungle and of gun-fighting, like Che: Part One, but there are more instances of Bolivian acoustic folk music employed in the score of Che: Part Two.

     Surround channel usage captures the battle scenes well, with sound coming from all speakers. Ambient crowd noise was similarly well-defined in the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix.

     The subwoofer captures the sound of battles but is not used as much as it is Che: Part One.

Audio Ratings Summary

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Audio Sync
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Surround Channel Use
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Interviews-Crew with composer Alberto Iglesias (12:28)

     Alberto Iglesias discusses how he became involved with the film, his attitude towards the story of Che Guevara's life, the challenges he faced in his musical composition, his inspiration for the soundtrack, the differences between the directorial styles of Steven Soderbergh and Pedro Almodovar, the process of producing the music and his memories of working on the Che production. This extra is in Spanish and is presented in the aspect ratio of 1:85:1, 16x9 enhanced for widescreen televisions.

Interviews-Crew with Che expert Jon Lee Anderson (31:46)

     Jon Lee Anderson spends 30 minutes discussing how he became interested in Che Guevara's life and Benicio del Toro's depiction of Che Guevara in the film. As the author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, Anderson gives a detailed account of Che Guevara as a person, demystifying the larger-than-life persona of Che that has come about in the late 20th century since his death. This extra and the previous extra with Alberto Iglesias are presented in an EPK (or electronic press kit) format, with questions shown as text on screen. This extra is also presented in an aspect ratio of 1:85:1, 16x9 enhanced for widescreen televisions.

Theatrical Trailer

     This is the trailer that was shown for Che: Part Two during the film's theatrical run in cinemas.

     Che: Part Two has been released in Region 1 in the United States as a 3 DVD box set with Che: Part One in the Criterion Collection. The standout feature of this release is the extras, as the video and audio transfers are fairly similar to the Region 4 release by Paramount Pictures. My Region 1 Criterion copy of Che: Part Two takes up 7.22 gb of space on a dual-layered DVD, with an average bitrate of 7.29 m/b per sec. There is a significant difference in the bitrate, therefore, in comparison to the Region 4 release of Che: Part Two. There is no Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded soundtrack on the Region 1 Release; rather a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack is reserved for biographer Jon Lee Anderson's audio commentary.

     Disc 3 of this box set includes a 50 minute Making Che documentary about the making of the film, a 33 minute feature called Che and the Digital Revolution which looks at the digital camera technology, a 26 minute documentary from 1968 by Brian Moser entitled End of a Revolution which looks at Che's failed Bolivian campaign, 20 minutes of deleted scenes, a 35 minute interview sequence entitled Interviews from Cuba conducted by producer Laura Bickford and star Benicio Del Toro in Cuba with actual participants in the revolution and some historians who discuss its long-range effect on Cuba’s history at the time and after the fact, a 20 page booklet which includes an essay by film critic Amy Taubin and a foldout poster of Benicio del Toro as Che Guevara.

     The Region 2 release of Che: Part Two by Optimum Releasing is identical to the Region 4 release, with the same video and audio transfers except that an interview with actor Benicio del Toro that goes for six minutes is included as an extra. The Region 2 release is also available as a 2-disc box set including Che: Part One, whereas the Region 4 releases of Che by Paramount Pictures are currently only available as separate movies.

     The overwhelming quality of extras on the Region 1 Criterion release makes that version the best available on DVD but if you are content with just viewing the film without a plethora of extra features then the Region 4 release of Che: Part Two - Guerrilla is more than suitable.

     Che: Part Two - Guerrilla is a more intimate film than Che: Part One - The Argentine. Despite this, you couldn't favour one film over the other, Che needs to be seen a single 4 and 1/2 hour film, whether it's in one viewing or two. Hopefully Paramount Pictures will release Che as a 2-disc box set in the future.

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