‘Che’: It’s a Long Story

During last night’s post-screening press conference for “Che,” the two-part, 268-minute film based on the life of Ernesto “Che” Guevara that makes its debut at the New York Film Festival on October 7, the film’s director, Steven Soderbergh, addressed a fundamental irony at the heart of his ambitious and technically polished new project. Though Che Guevara dedicated his life to fomenting Marxist revolution intended to abolish capitalism, the Argentine physician-guerrilla’s name and image have helped to sell, in Mr. Soderbergh’s words, “a wall of books” and other commercial goods branded with the revolutionary’s likeness. Mr. Soderbergh expressed the hope that his film, not the easiest sell to mainstream audiences, would bear some of the same branded commercial heft.