Aside from the "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" premiere, the film that really had everyone curious at this year's Cannes Film Festival was "Che" - Steven Soderbergh's presentation of his $61 million two-part Che Guevera biopic. Quite a few stayed on at the fest yesterday specifically to check out the first screening.
The result has been a surprisingly split reaction with some veteran and well-respected critics on opposite sides of the fence about Soderbergh's unconventional opus on the Cuban revolutionary. Some utterly adore it and are declaring it a Palme d'Or winner already, others saying it's a mess not seen at Cannes since Richard Kelly's disastrous "Southland Tales" screening. Whatever the case, it's certainly the most talked about film of the festival so far, by far. Amongst the reactions:
"A piece of full-on, you-are-there realism about the making of the Cuban revolution that I found utterly believable. Not just "take it to the bank" gripping, but levitational -- for someone like myself it's a kind of perfect dream movie..." - Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere
"What a rare pleasure it is to have a film (or films) that, in our box-office obsessed, event-movie, Oscar-craving age, is actually worth talking about on so many levels..." - James Rocchi, Cinematical
"Perhaps it will even come to be seen as this director's flawed masterpiece: enthralling but structurally fractured - the second half is much clearer and more sure-footed than the first - and at times frustratingly reticent, unwilling to attempt any insight into Che's interior world..." - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
"An incredibly ambitious, highly detailed mess of a film or two that might be saved if it's re-thought. We haven't seen so much genius and tedium in one place since "Heaven's Gate"..." - Roger Friedman, FOX News
"Benefits greatly from certain Soderberghian qualities that don't always serve his other films well, e.g., detachment, formalism, and intellectual curiosity..." - Glenn Kenny, Indiewire
"[An] art film along the lines of something Terrence Malick normally makes, Soderbergh's epic is deliberate and low key. Del Toro completely inhabits the role as you might expect. He was born to play Che..." - Pete Hammond, Los Angeles Times
"A folly.' 'A mess.' 'Great.' These words came from some of the critics coming out of Steven Soderbergh's four-hour 18 minute Spanish-language Che Wednesday night. At the end there was slight applause; no boos. My own description: noble failure..." - Anne Thompson, Variety