PARADISE LOST: THE CHILD MURDERS AT ROBIN HOOD HILLS
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1996 Scott Renshaw
(Gotham) Documentary by Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger. MPAA Rating: Not rated (graphic depictions of corpses, profanity) Running Time: 150 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw. (*Note: PARADISE LOST premiered on HBO this summer prior to its theatrical release)
Three years ago, I might have given a perfect rating to PARADISE LOST: THE CHILD MURDERS AT ROBIN HOOD HILLS; two years from now, I might be similarly inclined to honor it. Such are the vagaries of critical opinion, that temporal beast, that I found my experience of Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's documentary both enhanced and diminished by recent pervasive coverage of high-profile murder cases. As a carefully constructed detective story, PARADISE LOST is riveting; as a study of small town America at its best and its worst, it is compelling. However, as an examination of publicly-aired grief and suspicion of the criminal justice system, it is merely exemplary rather than extraordinary.
PARADISE LOST begins with chilling footage of a May 5, 1993 crime scene outside of West Memphis, Arkansas: 8-year-old classmates Michael Moore, Steven Branch and Christopher Byers have been hot-tied, beaten and stabbed to death, and Byers castrated. The murders naturally outrage the insular and deeply religious community, and families of the victims are only too ready to believe the worst when three likely enough suspects are arrested. 17-year-old Jessie Misskelley confesses under police questioning to participating in a Satanic ritual in which the three boys were killed, and implicates 16-year-old Jason Baldwin and 18-year-old Damien Echols as well. Damien, an occult-fascinated, heavy metal-listening eccentric, is particularly tailor-made for prosecution, but there are potential problems with the case. Jessie has an IQ of only 72, and his confession is riddled with inconsistencies. There also happens to be virtually no physical evidence, and plenty to suggest that the crimes may have occurred somewhere beside the muddy ditch where the bodies were found.
The first half hour of PARADISE LOST introduces us to a fascinating cast of characters, and to a setting which is as critical to the case as any piece of evidence. John Mark Byers, stepfather of victim Christopher Byers, is shown in a tirade against the killers laced both with hatred and with Scripture, and he becomes a personification of a town as obsessed with its perceptions of the devil as it is steadfast in its Christianity. There are moments of powerful emotional honesty which capture the deep conflict between the need for catharsis and the call for forgiveness -- one victim's grandfather holds back tears as he refuses to hate the accused teens, while Byers' mother lashes out against them and "the mothers that bore them." Hovering over the proceedings like a dark angel is the film's most enigmatic figure, Damien Echols -- a perceptive, self-absorbed and vaguely frightening young man who is like a Satanist from central casting. Misskelley and Baldwin, both tiny and timid, seem physically incapable of the crimes; when Echols takes the stand, toying with his hair and answering questions as though the world were wasting his time, you can see him digging shovelsful of his own grave.
The courtroom scenes are rife with the kind of confrontations familiar from both fictional and real-life proceedings, but the knowledge of its reality makes every unexpected revelation all the more enthralling. For much of the film, Sinofsky and Berlinger let the trials of Misskelley (tried separately) and Baldwin and Echols unfold slowly, and it seems their focus is the railroading of the three accused boys as a result of their outsider status. Then new bits of evidence keep exploding like land mines. Another possible suspect emerges after turning over a weapon to the film-makers; Damien's testimony appears to trip him up; another character is revealed to have a brain tumor. It is a case of such complexity that any amateur juror who has railed against noteworthy verdicts should be forced to watch PARADISE LOST as a civics lesson.
The courtroom drama of PARADISE LOST is certainly intriguing, but I think the film spends a bit too much time in the courtroom, because the actual evidence is only half the story. When Sinofsky and Berlinger spend time with the families, they force us to confront the scars the families on both sides will bear, and to confront our own preconceptions in the process. At the same time, it was difficult to listen to the righteous wrath of the victims' parents and not recall the media trials waged by the fathers of Ronald Goldman (in the O.J. Simpson trial) and Polly Klaas (a much-publicized California rape-murder case). Outrage against the concept of presumed innocence just isn't news in this age, and PARADISE LOST simply underlines this trend rather than exposing it. That is not to diminish its power -- PARADISE LOST will have you asking yourself questions long after it ends. Perhaps by the time I reach my own personal verdict, its power will have overwhelmed its familiarity entirely.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 cult classics: 8.
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