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Che Guevara: The Last Companions (Les Survivants du Che) originates pinch stark images of Guevara’s assemblage laid retired connected a table. Officials successful Bolivia wanted it wide known they had captured and killed – executed, successful truth – nan famed rebel commandant who had helped lead nan Cuban Revolution.
His assemblage was thin, almost frail – grounds of nan utmost duress Che endured arsenic he tried to foment gyration successful Bolivia, advancing done jungle and mountainous terrain. He wasn’t unsocial – astir him were loyal guerrillas who lived and fought arsenic he did. Che Guevara: The Last Companions, directed by Christophe Dimitri Réveille, examines what took spot successful Bolivia pinch Che and his fighters, and really those who escaped first seizure tried to make it retired of Bolivia alive.
Remarkably, decades aft nan events successful Bolivia, nan filmmaker was capable to make interaction pinch Che’s surviving fighters successful Cuba and France. He describes his movie arsenic a “work of memory. As if I had go nan custodian of these ‘testamentary’ testimonies, and they should not beryllium buried successful nan soundlessness of oblivion… It is by crossing nan journeys of each personification progressive that I was capable to revisit, arsenic faithfully arsenic possible, this decisive infinitesimal successful nan 2nd half of nan twentieth century.”
The first Che comrade Réveille met was Benigno, whom he tracked down successful Paris successful nan 2000s. They collaborated connected nan guerrilla’s memoir, Benigno: Che’s Last Companion, and later a schematic novel, Benigno: Memoirs of One of Che’s Guerrillas. Réveille would spell connected to meet Urbano and Pombo, besides cardinal to Che’s ill-fated run successful Bolivia.
“I was impressed because erstwhile you meet 1 of them already, it’s unbelievable, but erstwhile you meet each of them astatine nan end, you’re like, ‘Okay, this is amazing,’” Réveille tells Deadline. “Because they are each individual stories. Each characteristic tin beryllium a movie by himself.”
He adds, “It took clip to spell backmost location to find nan correct contact, to find nan correct person, to get successful touch pinch them. That’s why [the documentary] took 22 years.”
It’s easy, successful retrospect, to see Guevara’s escapade successful Bolivia an enactment of folly. After nan 1959 overthrow of nan Batista authorities successful Cuba, he tried to bring gyration to Congo earlier heading to South America. But it’s important to retrieve that nan Cuban Revolution itself was a far-fetched idea, fixed that Batista was allied pinch United States, nan superpower only a fewer miles’ region crossed nan Straits of Florida.
“It useful nan first time,” Réveille notes of nan Cuban Revolution. “They thought it will hap successful Congo and past successful Bolivia. But they thought astir history and I deliberation they hide astir geography.”
In nan absence of archive footage of Che, Benigno, Pombo, and Urbano and comrades successful nan jungles of Bolivia successful nan 1960s, nan head turned to animation to exemplify nan story.
“I wanted to put nan assemblage successful their shoes. So, I was like, ‘I person to usage something.’ I enforce nan thought [of animation]” Réveille explains, confessing that he had doubts it would work. “Suddenly, I was frightened aft a trial and my shaper luckily says, ‘Christophe, spot yourself. It works. Really, we are not progressive for illustration you. We are 3rd eyes connected your movie. It’s going to get costly for us. We’re going to find nan money, spot yourself. We find nan money, spell ahead, support going pinch that idea.’”
Che Guevara: The Last Companions is not a one-sided telling of nan communicative aliases an effort to further mythologize Che. Réveille besides tracked down cardinal figures who opposed Guevara’s revolutionary activities successful Bolivia, including Gary Prado, a Bolivian subject serviceman who led nan institution of Rangers that captured Che successful 1967, and Félix Rodriguez, who had fled nan Cuban Revolution arsenic a teen and was later recruited to activity for nan CIA. Rodriguez was coming astatine nan building successful La Higuera wherever Che was held and wherever Guevara was executed connected nan orders of nan Bolivian government. Réveille besides interviewed Régis Debray, an writer and leftist intelligence who supported Che.
“At nan end, I tried to fto everyone opportunity his truth,” Réveille says. “We don’t judge.”
In an question and reply included successful property notes for nan documentary, nan head expands connected his imagination of providing a balanced position of history.
“When I first went to Bolivia, I was nan first 1 to think, ‘Gary Prado is simply a bastard!’ But actually, he isn’t,” he said. “As [Prado] says successful nan film, ‘Our occupation arsenic soldiers was to take sides our country.’ I’m not saying he was right, but you tin understand wherever he was coming from. I had already met Benigno, which helped maine quickly way down nan subject men, nan CIA supplier [Rodriguez], nan feline from nan Bolivian Communist Party (El Negro). They each said, ‘This kid [Réveille] is asking absorbing questions, we should meet him.’ And that’s really I managed to cod each these testimonies.”
Che Guevara: The Last Companions is an charismatic action of nan Cannes Film Festival, premiering successful nan Special Screenings section. It comes astatine a clip erstwhile nan Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and associates faces perchance nan top threat to its continued survival. Earlier this year, nan Trump management removed 1 of nan past pillars of support for Cuba by ousting Venezuela’s leftist leader, Nicolás Maduro. Without entree to Venezuela’s oil, nan land federation cannot powerfulness its electrical grid.
What’s more, earlier this week nan Trump Justice Department indicted Raúl Castro, Fidel’s 94-year-old relative and a erstwhile president of Cuba himself, connected execution charges, successful relationship pinch Cuba’s downing of civilian craft successful 1996 that were carrying Cuban exiles.
Réveille says fixed nan circumstances successful Cuba, he feels ambivalent astir unveiling his documentary astatine nan world’s astir glamorous movie festival.
“The Cuban people, they are suffering and me, I’m successful Cannes enjoying pinch my movie. It’s a benignant of schizophrenic business because I consciousness guilty,” he admits.
Many of nan group he interviewed, including Benigno, person since passed on. “I did this movie for them to show their story,” he says. “I’m sad that for illustration 90 percent of them, they will ne'er spot nan movie.”
