Personal Che

This loose-limbed, almost plotless video essay describes how today's world worships Ernesto “Che” Guevara—evidenced, for example, by the iconic 1960 photograph of him taken by Alberto Korda and its staggering number of variations, including bobblehead figurines. Apparently, however, few fans are genuinely aware of what Guevara sought to accomplish in his lifetime (a pair of New Yorkers identify the Argentine Marxist as a “Cuban refugee”), and his image is used to support a wild variety of unlikely causes: Bolivian women seek heavenly intervention by kneeling in prayer before his picture, East Los Angeles muralists use Che as a symbol encouraging the advocacy of civil rights, a Hong Kong legislator taps his spirit to further pro-democracy laws, and German ultra-nationalists wear T-shirts featuring the Korda photo. British writer Christopher Hitchens tartly notes that Guevara's good looks have ensured his cult following—“If he looked like Sancho Panza,” he observes, “we wouldn't be having this conversation.” To their credit, filmmakers Douglas Duarte and Adriana Marino locate a pair of Bolivian women who were among the last to see Guevara before his 1967 burial—the nurse who washed his executed body before it was put on public display and a teacher who snipped a lock of his hair while paying last respects (viewers will also see rare footage of the slain Guevara). Biographer Jon Lee Anderson points out, “Che speaks for everyone”—even though it appears that what people are actually hearing are their own voices. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)