Steven Soderbergh has made two films about Che Guevara; The Guerrilla and The Argentine. At Cannes they were shown together in two parts under the title Che and including the 20-minute interval, audiences were challenged to spend almost five hours of precious Cannes time watching the film.

The result is worth every minute spent in the theatre; the first part is structured much like Steven Soderbergh's Traffic and Out of Sight with the story jumping back and forth and unfolding in a non-linear fashion.

The second part jumps to the last year of Che's life, when the revolutionary abandoned his position as the Cuban Finance Minister to try and start a revolution in Bolivia. This section is in chronological order and told at a much slower pace; the sweeping vistas and long still shots are in the style of The Thin Red Line director Terrence Malick, who was once attached to make this biopic.

Given that the films do not continue chronologically from one another and this is not a typical biopic with a traditional part 1 and part 2, it's prudent to deal with each film separately. Although up front it's worth stating that Benito Del Torro should at least get an Academy Award nomination for his turn as Ernesto 'Che' Guevara and Demien Bichir is excellent as the enigmatic Fidel Castro.



The Guerrilla

The story mainly jumps between three important events that highlighted Che's philosophy and penchant for armed revolution. Some of these ideas are garnered from Che's book 'Guerrilla Warfare'. The first event is his initial meeting with Fidel Castro in Mexico in 1955, where he is told about and persuaded to join the armed struggle wanting to overthrow the American stooge dictator Batista and the ensuing unsuccessful first attempt to overthrow the government in 1956, the second is in the months before Castro and Che successfully took Havana in 1959 as Che struggles with asthma, and the third is the 1964 visit to New York when Guevara made a speech at the United Nations.

An interview with a journalist in 1964 is used to provide details and information on why Che joined the revolution and connect the dots to tell the story of how a force of less than 100 men could embark on a journey that would result in them successfully taking over an island. It's magnificent filmmaking and Soderbergh's portrait of the man whose face adorns millions or T-shirts takes a neutral position. This will polarise audiences - fans of Che will say the film doesn't sufficiently display the charisma of Che, while detractors will argue that it's light on the brutality that unofficial biographer John Lee Anderson claims defined the man. Like a jigsaw puzzle everything fits perfectly by the end.



The Argentine

The initial scenes as Che puts on a heavy disguise and travels incognito to Cuba provide the best moments of cinema from either film. Everything that Che did as part of the Cuban government is completely ignored and by jumping straight into his time in Bolivia Soderbergh shows that in both films he's primarily interested in telling the story of Che the military man.

This, though, is a war film with very little fighting and by introducing a completely new cast of characters it really does feel like we're watching a completely separate film from the first part. The trouble is that this is paced much slower and more time is taken to look at how Che prepared for battle. Without Fidel's large mouth it's silent for much of the time and it begins to feel pedestrian with nothing much happening. Despite the narrative flaws it cannot be denied that the visually this section is spectacular and that the events of the second half may have left a greater impression had I seen them independent of the first film.

Ultimately, whatever the eventual shape this movie comes in, it is bravura, ambitious film-making and a welcome, post-Ocean's 11 return to serious form from this talented director.