Stephen Soderbergh's CHE epic receives stellar reviews at Cannes
4 hour 18 minute epic becomes the critics darling at Cannes but just how on Earth are they going to distribute it?
Ok, because you guys have frequently talked about this movie being shown at Cannes in the comments section, here's a little update for you on the current status of the epic biopic of Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara. Both back-to-back Stephen Soderbergh shot biopics The Guerilla and The Argentine were shown as one 4 hour and 18 minute length feature titled CHE which was only broken up by an intermission (only one credits sequence) and it quickly became the festival darling of the critics, who now expect the director to easily walk away with the Palm d'Or prize.
Great reviews from Cinematical...Che is everything a biopic should be, and del Toro's performance is nothing short of astounding. And yes, the film needs to be that long, and it needs -- MUST -- be shown elsewhere just as it is here; not as two separate films, but as one epic masterpiece with a brief intermission between Cuba and Bolivia.Jeffrey Wells...
The tale is the tale, and it's told straight and true. Benicio del Toro's Guevara portrayal is, as expected, a flat-immersion that can't be called a "performance" as much as...I don't know, some kind of knock-down, ass-kick reviving of the dead. Being, not "acting." I loved the lack of sentimentality in this thing, the electric sense that Soderbergh is providing a real semblance of what these two experiences -- the successful Cuban revolution of '57 and '58, and the failed attempt to do the same in Boliva in '67 -- were actually like.Though some, like Variety's Todd McCarthy were critical of Soderbergh's direction and the film's length...
If the director has gone out of his way to avoid the usual Hollywood biopic conventions, he has also withheld any suggestion of why the charismatic doctor, fighter, diplomat, diarist and intellectual theorist became and remains such a legendary figure; if anything, Che seems diminished by the way hes portrayed here. ...Che is too big a roll of the dice to pass off as an experiment, as its got to meet high standards both commercially and artistically. The demanding running time also forces comparison to such rare works as Lawrence of Arabia, Reds and other biohistorical epics. Unfortunately, Che doesnt feel epic -- just long.Benico del Toro has also been spoken of as a real potential Oscar candidate for his transformation into the dictator. The next leap for the film will be to find a distribution deal that will best showcase the movie. Clint Eastwood didn't quite hit it right when he released Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers as two close together but separately released films and we all know what happened with Grindhouse! Lots of decision making to be had. Releasing a four hour biopic is a risky move but so is splitting it into two movies where people will be put off paying to see it twice.