Mr. del Toro doesn’t deny that Guevara’s persona had some darker aspects. “We have to omit a lot of stuff about his life,” he said, “but we’re not omitting the fact that he’s for capital punishment, which is the essence of that.”… “They didn’t do it blindly; they had trials,” Mr. del Toro said. “They found them guilty, and they executed them – that’s capital punishment.”
Sonny then asked del Toro about Castro’s “concentration camps” prompting del Toro to storm out of the interview. Apparently he took exception to that description of the manner in which political prisoners were detained before being tried and executed (that’s capital punishment). Still, the New York Post has a Q&A with the actor for those interested in hearing what del Toro likes most about the Commie icon:
Early on in his life, one of his first emotional moments is an asthma attack. And the family, in order to give him a better chance, moves [within Argentina] from Rosario to Cordoba. His early, formative years were surrounded by this protection and encouragement and love from the family. You know that he’s a warrior, but he didn’t start on the streets fighting for a meal. The warrior – you imagine that he was born in a cage of lions. This guy has become an icon for armed struggle, yet he spent a lot of time wheezing through the jungles of Latin America. He was in the middle of battles and the middle of war with asthma, and sometimes he had no medicine. What impressed me was that he forced himself to adhere to the same regulations he set for his men. And what we went through was similar. It wasn’t an easy movie to make.
At 4.5 hours long, it can’t be very easy to watch either, but hopefully that doesn’t stop all the asthmatic children who, with the right amount of love and encouragement, can still grow up to execute the enemies of the revolution. Update: reason.tv‘s video “Killer Chic: Hollywood’s Sick Love Affair with Che Guevara” is worth watching.
