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Che Guevara was not a hippie. Che Guevara was not a protester. Che Guevara was not into kitschy t-shirts. Chevolution is the story about the real Ernesto “Che” Guevara, photographer Alberto “Korda” Diaz and the most reproduced image of a person in the 20th century. Premiering at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, Chevolution is an impressive directorial debut for co-directors Trisha Ziff and Luis Lopez.

The film’s clean, tight narrative is both poignant and entertaining, and clearly benefits from Ziff’s deep understanding of photography and Lopez’s previous documentary work (The King of Kong, Shut Up & Sing). Lopez, who also served as editor of the film, crafts three reasonably well defined acts. The first deals with the lives of Che and Korda. This biopic portion of the film is a little glossy in its depiction of Che, though later sections add balance to the view of this dogmatic, violent yet altruistic and charismatic man. Whoever he really was, the mythology of Che is now larger than life, and it’s hard not to get wrapped up in its retelling. A rose-colored lens can be forgiven.

The film pivots after Korda captures the now ubiquitous image, “Guerillero Heroico.” Like many works of genius, the photo was received with ambivalence at best and laid dormant for years until Guevara’s assassination catapulted him to international martyrdom. Thanks in no small part to Cuba’s refusal to accept international copyright laws, the photo takes on a life of its own. Systematically, the photo transforms from a Cuban portrait with deep intrinsic meaning, to a more general symbol of struggle, to a pop icon and finally to a rampant commercialized logo. It’s somehow both amusing and sad to watch one of this century’s biggest Marxist figures fed to the machine of capitalism to sell everything from women’s lingerie to mid-shelf vodka.

The final act is where the film truly shines. Korda, realizing the rampant abuse his work is suffering, gets a lawyer to fight for control and compensation of the work. His struggle raises interesting and age-old questions about symbols and art itself; who defines meaning? Is it the creator, the audience or some objective meaning within the work itself? Perhaps more aptly, once something takes on a life of its own, as the image of Che has, is there any one true meaning? The symbol has been used to express peace, violence, comedy, desperation and everything in between. Does this ambiguity add to the work’s merit or detract from it?

The film doesn’t answer these questions or offer any real judgment on the life Che chose for himself. Rather, it holds a mirror up to a life lived, and a society which derives its own meaning from that life, subtly compelling ones own consideration of these questions. Paradoxically, this defines art for many; a reflection on the human condition prompting examination of what may ultimately be unanswerable questions.

Chew on that the next time you see a Che Guevara t-shirt.

Editor's Note: To hear Mike Raffensperger's interview with Co-Director's Trisha Ziff and Luis Lopez, click here.

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- Blog post from Trisha Ziff

- IFC's text interveiw with Trisha Ziff