Che Guevara: The Last Companions

It would be naïve to assume a documentary featuring a revolutionary subject would de facto pursue fidelity with the revolution. No artistic mandate exists requiring perspectives of filmmakers — or biographers, for that matter— and their subjects to align. The new French documentary, Che Guevara: The Last Companions, ends up on the most frustrating side of this equilibrium by posturing itself as being spiritually faithful to its revolutionary figures, the final three companions to the titular Commandant’s activities in Bolivia, despite first performing an ideological kenosis of their revolutionary politics.

Acting coach-turned-director Christophe Dimitri Réveille blends archival footage, original interviews, and sparse animation into a film that details the events following the death of Che Guevara in Bolivia in 1967. Six comrades survived his death immediately, though three died quickly into the escape. The English title places somewhat more prominence on the famous fallen revolutionary than did the original French Les Survivants du Che, though both still capitalize on the marketability of Che Guevara — one of the world’s most (in)famous symbols of armed revolution. Indeed, the connection to Che sells the film, even though he has very little to do with what happens to Urbano (Leonardo Tamayo Núñez), Pombo (Harry Villegas), and Benigno (Daniel Alarcón Ramírez). 

The Last Companions is, more than anything, an escape film. Réveille meticulously and procedurally pieces together the arduous story of these survivors avoiding capture by the Bolivian army as they journey more than 2,600 miles through dense jungles and rugged mountains back to the city where they hope to arrange travel back to Cuba. The director tells this story in incredible detail, including everything from a dog they save from the rightist army to the isolated rural farmer who houses them for a month so that they can gain their strength back and continue their journey. Structurally, this all resembles the fundament of a heist, where the details themselves are the appeal — and their escape is genuinely enthralling, even without an ideological substance to gird it. Their escape could come from anywhere, for any reason. We very briefly hear why each one of them fights, though what it is they believe and, most importantly, the story’s relevance to the global struggle for liberation from oppression is decorative at best and forgotten at worst.

The famous Vincent Lindon narrates the film in a voice so deep and raspy as to be almost sultry. In the context of this world, then, Lindon’s voice is distracting. He narrates in French, of course — his own language, though it has squat to do with the story (beyond the accidental fact that Benigno eventually settled in France and became an anti-Castroist). It’s a similar casting logic that has recruit the beloved Morgan Freeman so many times: his voice is instantly recognizable and his star power lends authority to the documentary, a genre often dictated by the negotiation of authority. 

Continue reading at In Review Online.