IT’S almost too fitting, to the point of being farcical, that “Che,” the two-part film about the infamous Argentine revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, was inspired by the ubiquitous T-shirt.
“I was working with Benicio on ‘Traffic,’Ñ” recalls Laura Bickford, one of the producers of the film and I said to him, ‘Hey, you look just like the guy in the shirt, we should do a movie about him.'”
PHOTOS: Benicio Del Toro As Ernesto “Che” Guevara
Eight years later, the ambitious 4 1/2-hour epic is finally set to open, on Friday in New York, for a one-week limited engagement. It opens in January nationally.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh, “Che” is no ordinary film. Part documentary, part feature, the Spanish-language movie is a wonky biopic that teems with historical details about the guerilla fighter’s storied and intense life.
Asked why the film took so long to be completed, Del Toro answers: “That is a question for Che. Why such a fulfilled life? We believe that this is the shortest film about Che Guevara’s revolutionary life that could be made.”
“Che: Part One” picks up the story when, as a young medic, Guevara meets Fidel Castro and his brother, Raul, in Mexico and along with a small group of ragtag guerillas they take off to overthrow the Fulgencio Bastista regime.
Che: Part Two” picks up Che after the victorious Cuban Revolution when he disappears mysteriously, leaving behind world fame and acclaim, (wife and kids, too) and reappears in the Bolivian jungle ready to spread his Bolivarian socialist revolution.
It’s an understatement to say that Del Toro is spectacular as Che. Yes, he is a dead ringer for the leftist icon – but from the legendary asthma attacks in the jungle that Che suffered, to the sexy chain-smoking of Cuban cigars, to the intensity and brutality of guerilla warfare – Del Toro’s performance is transcendent.
Native Spanish speakers will especially get to experience the nuance of Del Toro’s gift. In Part 1, Del Toro slowly transforms his character’s Argentinian-tinged Spanish to a rhythmic rat-a-tat-tat of colloquial Cuban.
“I don’t know if I nailed it,” Del Toro says when he’s complimented on the small but important detail. “I worked with a nephew of Che, Pablo Guevara. We worked very hard, I think that we survived.”
“Che had a very peculiar accent; it wasn’t completely Argentinian. By the time the movie starts, he had already been in Central America for some time. And then when he went to Cuba, he made a conscious effort to get rid of the accent so that he could communicate with the peasantry.”
“Imagine .Ñ.Ñ. ” he says, before pausing. Del Toro is famous for his long and deliberate pauses during interviews that make you think you just insulted him with a stupid question or, if you’re on the phone, that he’s hung up on you.
“Imagine an Argentine trying to speak to a jibaro, (peasant), the jibaro is not going to understand him.”
It was this attention to detail that makes the Puerto Rico-born actor’s performance a standout.
“I don’t think people understand the complexity, the variety of Spanish accents that exist,” explains Bickford. According to the British-born producer, it wasn’t just Del Toro who worked on accents. All the actors, who hailed from gaggle of Latin American countries, had dialect coaches to work with them in the hotel and on the set.
For Demian Bichir, who plays an entertaining Fidel Castro, and Santiago Cabrera, a memorable Camilo Cienfuegos, these lessons paid off. Sadly, Catalina Sandino Moreno, who plays Che’s widow, Aleida Duran, sounded every bit the Colombian that she is.
The film has drawn protests both from the expected corners of the Cuba/Che debate (about one hundred Cuban ex-pats picketed in front of the Versailles Movie Theater Complex when it premiered last week in Miami). But also, from the unexpected- American film critics. One fumed at Soderbergh, writing that this film is “a commercial impossibility.”
Del Toro, for his part, seems almost Zen about it.
“Critics, they might be right, but they can also be wrong. It’s a free country,” says the cool cat.
And Del Toro – who is one of the producers on the film – says he happens to be proud of the end result, no matter what the commercial viability of the film may be.
“I think the movie is challenging, it’s not a typical biopic. It’s not shot typically. There are no close-ups. The movie is loaded with information . . . I do like it and I understand that it’s different, but I am proud to be part of a different movie in many ways.”
The eight-year process to make the film, he recalls, was hard and exhausting, but worth it.
“We wanted to do a story where no one could tell us that it did not happen,” he says.
In Cuba, the real test for anything Che-related (if there is such a place), the film received two standing ovations this past weekend when it opened the Havana Film Festival.
Che’s widow, who lives in Cuba, runs the Che Museum in Havana (El Centro de Estudios Che Guevara), and who agreed to share intimate stories with Del Toro about her notorious husband when Del Toro was losing faith in the process, was there.
“So many times I had the sense of ‘Why me? I don’t want to do this,’Ñ” says Del Toro. “But that gave me energy to dare, to do it, to get up even when I was feeling like, ‘Oh my God, what am I doing here.’ It gave me that little umph to get up and keep going.” says Del Toro.
The 41-year-old actor confesses that playing Che transformed his life, in small, everyday ways.
“I started a diary. I drink coffee without sugar,” both habits of Argentina’s favorite son.
And just like Che, Del Toro picked up cigar-smoking.
“Cubans” he offers, “when I can get my hands on them.”
“Che: Part One” and “Che: Part Two” open on Friday
The Guevara you didn’t know:
Born to upper middle class atheist parents of Spanish-Basque (Celia de la Serna Rosa) and Irish (Ernesto Guevara Lynch) heritage. His dad was fond of saying, “inside his sons veins flowed the blood of Irish rebels.”
As a teen in Rosario, Argentina, hated to bathe. Wore a ‘weekly shirt’ and schoolmates nicknamed him “Chancho” (Pig).
He was an avid chess player and competed in tournaments from the age of 12.
A fervent rugby union player he had a reputation for playing aggressively.
Loved poetry, particularly Chilean Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda.
Formally changed his name from Ernesto Guevara de la Serna to Che Guevara in 1959.
A passionate reader and diarist Che had a 30,000-word diary in his possession when he was killed.
Che’s famous last words: “Shoot, coward, you’re only going to kill a man,” when he was killed execution style by CIA trained Bolivian military in 1967.
Alberto Korda, Cuban photographer who shot the “most famous photograph in the world,” of Che titled, “Guerillero Heroíco” published it in Cuban paper Revolución in 1965. He never received royalties for it.
Lasting legacy: Inspired countless writers, rockers, athletes, politicians worldwide including, Jack Keruoac’s “On The Road” (1957) was inspired by Che’s “Motorcycle Diaries.” (1952). Rolling Stones song, Indian Girl, (“Mr. Gringo, my father he ain’t no Che Guevara/And he’s fighting the war on the streets of Masaya” from the Emotional Rescue album. (1980) Mike Tyson has a Che tattoo on his chest.