Che: Hollywood’s pet killer
Andrew Bolt
Benicio del Toro thought it would be wonderful to produce and star in a movie that made the psychopathic killer Che Guevera seem a hero. Naturally, some of the usual suspects love his portrait:
Though the movie has received mixed critical reception, Mr. del Toro won top acting honors at Cannes this year. In his acceptance speech, he dedicated the award to Guevara.
The film was screened in Cuba, to much applause.
“Del Toro is spectacular in the role of Che, not only in his physical resemblance but also in his brilliant interpretation,” wrote Granma, the official newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party. “After more than five hours of screening, the Cuban public gave its endorsement with a strong ovation.”
So how did del Toro come to love a man infamous for shooting prisoners, imprisoning the innocent, crushing freedom and ruining an economy? Simple: by doing what all intellectuals tend to do, and judging people by their bright words and schemes, and not by their deeds or their consequences:
In doing research for the picture, Mr. del Toro was drawn to the writings of Guevara. “First, you start with what he wrote. What Che Guevara wrote. And he was a great writer, he wrote for years, so you start with that,” he said.
OK. Shall we start, then, with these “great” writings, Mr del Toro?:
Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands! My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl!…
Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become …
As for that bloody reality of Che, well, del Toro would rather his audience not see it:
Mr. del Toro doesn’t deny that Guevara’s persona had some darker aspects. “We have to omit a lot of stuff about his life,” he said, “but we’re not omitting the fact that he’s for capital punishment, which is the essence of that.”
Er, shooting people after a show trial or none - including people whose “crime” was merely to disagree - is to merely be “for capital punishment”? That’s actually dishonest. As dishonest as the film, it seems:
In the movie, Guevara is shown executing a man. But the man is executed for raping a child, not for being disloyal to the cause of revolution. Troops are offered a chance to desert, and get nothing more than a scolding for their cowardice.
I guess, then, that the people Che killed were just animals who deserved all they got.
Joe Lima picks up another of the film’s many lies:
At the end of the first half of the film, Che orders a rebel to return a red convertible the rebel has plundered. Che was not a plunderer, you see. Even if this incident is factually true, its inclusion in this film is a lie, because the film neglects to tell us that shortly after the war, Guevara moved into an extravagant beachfront mansion in Tarara, a few miles outside of Havana (after kicking out the previous owner). In March of 1959, Che lamely explained in a letter to future exile Carlos Franqui, then editor of the newspaper Revolucion, that “I am ill…due to my revolutionary work…Doctors advised a house at a distance (from Havana), so as to avoid too many visitors and I was lent this one by the Ministry of Property Recovery…” *
This really is sick. Yet countless students will find new reasons to worship evil.
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