Keswick Film Festival

Synopsis

A rare chance to see the whole of this masterly biopic by Steven Soderbergh, who said, while paying tribute to Walter Salles's The Motorcycle Diaries, "Now, there's a trilogy" when Che was released. Benicio del Toro (Best Actor, Cannes 2008) provides an excellent physical and emotional performance as the asthmatic Argentine doctor who became Latin America's most legendary revolutionary since Simón Bolívar. At times warm and witty, at times cruel and dogmatic, Che is portrayed as the often brilliant strategist and tactician of guerrilla warfare, but also the jungle leader in Bolivia who made crucial mistakes leading to his own death. Historians will discuss the political weightiness of Soderbergh’s portrait, and its ideological and historical precision, but as a depiction of one man’s rise to greatness and ultimate fall, we can but admire his energy and vision.