December 13, 2008

Che rides again in Hollywood

By Humberto Fontova
"Che" film gets thumbs up in Cuba," ran the headline from CNN's Havana Bureau on Dec. 8. Benicio Del Toro, who stars as Che, was in the Cuban capital at the Havana Film Festival this week-end presenting the movie he co-produced. "Che the movie met Che the myth in Cuba this weekend," starts the CNN report, "and the lengthy biopic of the Argentinean revolutionary won acclaim from among those who know his story best. "Indeed, but the acclaim came because those "who knew his story best" (Castro and his Stalinist henchmen, the film's chief mentors) saw that their directives had been followed slavishly, that Che's (genuine) story was completely absent from the movie. The Stalinist regime that co-produced this film and now fetes the star -- employing the midnight knock and the dawn raid among other devices by its KGB-mentored secret police- rounded up and jailed more political prisoners as a percentage of population than Stalin's and executed more...(Read Full Article)