Del Toro Can't Take The Heat: Finding It Hard To Defend Che?

I guess Benicio Del Toro's finding it increasingly difficult to withstand the "heat from the kitchen" with regards to Steven Soderbergh's movie "Che." Del Toro, who plays the leading role, recently walked out of an interview when the questioning turned to Che's image being a bit whitewashed in the portrayal. It seems Soderbergh and Del Toro ignored Che's murderous side.

Sonny Bunch of the Washington Times reports:

A controversial new biopic about Cuban revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara is awakening old passions and provoking vigorous defenses and denunciations of the iconic revolutionary and - in the case of an interview with The Washington Times - a dramatic walkout.

"I'm getting uncomfortable," Benicio del Toro said after fielding a question about his new movie's portrayal of the Bolivian and Cuban revolutions. "I'm done. I'm done, I hope you write whatever you want. I don't give a damn."

With that, the Oscar-winning actor walked away, abruptly terminating an interview conducted late last week to discuss director Steven Soderbergh's "Che."

Heated discussion has inevitably followed this almost 4 1/2-hour film's portrayal of the revered and reviled figure who sought to spread armed insurrection throughout Latin America and became a romanticized icon of rebellion in the process.

Yet its star seems ill at ease in the hot seat.

Hunched over a plate of guacamole in the backroom of gourmet Mexican restaurant Oyamel in the District, Mr. del Toro seemed excited to discuss the picture, which he co-produced with Mr. Soderbergh and Laura Bickford. 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.

Having received accolades from the Cuban audience (a "captive audience?") and Granma (Cuba's MSM) should tell you something, guys!

The article continues with director Soderbergh's explanation of how he made the movie (emphasis added):

Mr. Soderbergh defended his film's perspective in an interview with The Washington Post at the Toronto International Film Festival.

"I've had people ask me: 'How can you make a movie about a murderer? A terrorist?'" he said. "What they don't understand is that I'm in support of everyone who appears on screen. I have to be. I take the position of everyone who's on screen. I'm not judging them one way or another."

At the same time, Mr. Soderbergh seems to harbor few illusions about just who Guevara was.

"I don't know that there's any place for a person like me in the society that he was trying to make," the director said. "I'm the poster child for a lot of the [stuff] that he was trying to eradicate."

So, why did Soderbergh sanitize Che's image so much?!? I don't get it ...

Actor Del Toro said they had to "omit a lot of stuff about his life, but we're not omitting the fact that he's for capital punishment, which is the essence of that." In offering a counterperspective, journalist Bunch provided insight from Armando Valladares, the Cuban dissident imprisoned by the revolutionary regime in 1960. Valladares, a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International and a board member of the Human Rights Foundation, penned "Against All Hope: A Memoir of Life in Castro's Gulag":

"Che Guevara executed dozens and dozens of people who never once stood trial and were never declared guilty," he said. "In his own words, he said the following: 'At the smallest of doubt we must execute.' And that's what he did at the Sierra Maestra and the prison of Las Cabanas."

The article ends with some sober and somber points that the author and contributors hope the public will not forget, or at least take the time to investigate for themselves (emphasis added):

Guevara was instrumental in the creation of Cuba's forced labor camps, which were used to imprison and extract work from those who had committed no crimes but were thought to be insufficiently revolutionary.

The policy of extrajudicial imprisonment that Guevara favored would later expand to include political activists of all stripes, musicians, artists, homosexuals and others deemed to be dangerous to the maintenance of the Stalinist regime.

Mr. del Toro grew agitated when these prisons were described as "concentration camps," a phrase that Mr. Valladares freely employs.

"I'm a survivor of those concentration camps. And I stand firm by my belief that they were concentration camps," he said. "The forced labor camps where I also worked, where dozens and dozens of political prisoners were murdered, where thousands were tortured, that's something that even the most ardent believers in Castro´s tyranny can't deny."

Critics of "Che" have suggested that the film whitewashes its protagonist's legacy and that it's impossible to understand the man by glorifying his more romantic aspects while ignoring his darker side.

"We can't cover it all," Mr. del Toro said. "You can make your own movie. You know? You can make your own movie. And let's see. Do the research."

Mr. Valladares is afraid that Mr. del Toro and Mr. Soderbergh's film will make people forget the reality that was Che Guevara's life.

"Benicio del Toro is just one of the many accomplices of the Cuban tyranny," he said. "All the murderers of people have had accomplices and people who made excuses for them. Stalin had them, Hitler had them, Pinochet had them, all the dictators have had apologists for them. Che Guevara and Fidel Castro also had them."

It seems Hollywood is full of such apologists ...