'Che' – One of the Most Innovative and Beautiful Films in Years – Now Available on DVD and Bluray from Criterion

posted by Jett Loe

Steven Soderbergh’s Che is magnificent - Gareth and I have been remiss not to discuss it in detail on the show – will try to rectify soon Dear Reader.  In the meantime I urge you to screen Che if you can – I consider it one of the major films of the last decade:

Three of the Most Important Films of the Decade

Its fusion of a documentary’s intense naturalism with the power of engagement that comes from narrative fiction is unique.

I look at this special quality of the pic in slightly more detail in this post, reproduced below.

‘Che’ is available right now in a beautiful 3-Disc boxed edition from The Criterion Collection – treat yourself if you can.  In an age in which all media is seemingly available in digital form, actually holding the physical object – this boxed set, with an essay in booklet form by Amy Taubin and small ‘suitable for framing’ Che poster feels kinda radical ya know?

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Che and the Creation of a Style, January 12th 2009

Best film I’ve seen in ages – Che.

I imagine we’ll go into the politics of the pic amongst its various other attributes when we review it on the Show – but right now I just want to mention its style.

If you look back at reviews of the Godfather when it first came out one thing puzzled some critics.  Where did Francis Coppola get the amazing style for the film?

The framing, the pacing – it felt complete, mature, fully-formed.  As if Coppola had always been making films that way.  How did he do it?

I felt the same way while watching the magnificent Che.

Both Part 1 and Part 2 start off with a slow, meditative graphic that slowly reveals and hides the various locations we’ll be seeing in the film.  It beautifully puts you in the mood for this long, hypnotic film.

In Che the camera’s a bit shaky, naturalistic.  At first you’d be tempted to say it’s shot in a faux documentary style, but that’s not it.

It’s shot as if the camera’s not there.

What? Aren’t most films shot that way?

Nope:  in most pics you get the sense of everyone/everything beingblocked – see Hitchcock’s films for this – the players are arranged in the space, in the graphic space, for Hitchcock to play with – to build suspense – to affect the audience – to manipulate.

Che is different.

It’s shot as if by time traveler.  As if we’re seeing the recording of someone who was able to dip into the time stream of a person’s life unseen.

Watching the film we feel as if we’re getting impressions – impressions of a life – it’s up to us to read, research more about this person and his times – the film, miraculously treats us as adults.  Just as we have to interpret the actions of those around us; fit the events of our own life into our own personal pattern so we have to do the same with Che.

It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen and it’s a masterpiece – go see it.

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I’m not anywhere near as familier and knowledgeable about current non-commercial cinema as I should be – I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Che’s style is taken from something I haven’t seen, (as in the influence of Béla Tarr on Gus Van Sant’s Elephant).

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 4:36 pm. It is filed under Blog, Jett Loe, Jett Loe Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.