Only a few years ago, Walter Salles's The Motorcycle Diaries showed us Guevara's pre-revolutionary awakening to the plea of the impoverished and oppressed of South America. Steven Soderbergh, who directed Che, views that film as a companion piece for Che, making a trilogy. Yet there is little in any of these films that give us a clue as to what led a nice middle class Argentinean doctor to become a Marxist revolutionary. Why does Guevara become a guerrilla rather than one of the urban Communists working for a less violent change? The portrait of Guevara here is of an intelligent, gentle man. Indeed, there are accounts of him as such. In the film he cares for sick villagers the army encounters as they try to liberate their country. When Guevara's guerillas need food, they buy animals from local peasants, while the Bolivian army steals the farmers' chickens. When, after the decisive battle in Cuba, one of his men has confiscated a car belonging to a sniper, Guevara sends him back to the village to return the car. This version of Guevara is almost avuncular with those under his command. Benicio Del Toro's portrayal is almost passive. Guevara here certainly isn't bigger than life. He is often quiet, almost blending into the background.

We only see briefly the angry Guevara who addressed the United Nations and admitted that there were executions in Cuba. We aren't told that he was put in charge of approving the hundreds of executions that took place after Castro took the reins of power. We see a leader who cares for his comrades, not the leader who executed deserters and traitors.

Perhaps the clearest part of Guevara's personality that comes through in the film is his commitment to the cause of revolution (even if the film isn't very clear about the source of that commitment nor about the Marxist nature of the revolution.) He is willing to cut himself off from family and home to go wherever the revolution needs him. He tells his guerillas, "To survive here, to win, you have to be ready to live as if you've already died." Guevara, as seen here, gives his whole life over to the revolution. He has "already died" to everything but his commitment to change the world.

In reality, Guevara seemed to be all of these things. When he stood before the United Nations defending Cuba's harshness in the name of "Homeland or death," he seemed menacing and deadly. When he appeared on "Face the Nation" a few days later he was asked what the most important quality a revolutionary must have; he answered gently, "Love. Love of humanity, justice, and truth."

I would normally hesitate to compare Che Guevara with Jesus of Nazareth, and yet the Guevara seen in this film is something of a Christ figure. He gives his life in a struggle that he sees as the liberation of the world. He heals the sick. He teaches. He speaks of love and justice. He seems to fulfill the words of the prophet in Isaiah 61: "to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners." These are the same words Jesus used to define his ministry in the synagogue in Nazareth.

Certainly the tactics Guevara chose to address the needs he saw in the world (needs he began to see on his motorcycle tour of South America) are different from Jesus' approach to the needs he met. But, without trying to baptize Guevara's Marxist revolution or Guevara's violence, there is a sense in which he did many of the things that the Church is called to do in following Christ. It seems natural that about the time Guevara was seeking a worldwide revolution Latin American theologians developed Liberation Theology as the Church's response to the same problems.

Che did try to change the world. Those who follow Christ may also find themselves in a kind of revolution to change the world. Marxism and the Church may not agree in many ways, but I think Guevara's key quality for a revolutionary would make a good key quality for a Christian: "Love. Love of humanity, justice, and truth."

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