It's been four years since the release of Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, a documentary on the trials and convictions of three teenagers for the murder and mutilation of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. Despite the ever-expanding heap of evidence that the "West Memphis Three" are innocent, as well as the very real possibility that John Mark Byers (the stepfather of one of the murdered boys) may be the real culprit, all appeals have been denied, one defendant is perilously close to being executed, and the police refuse to investigate any other suspects.
When directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky set out to film Paradise Lost, they thought they'd be examining the disturbing phenomenon of murderous teenagers. Soon, however, they realized that the accused boys were victims of an appallingly incompetent police force and a town blinded by a "Satanic Panic." The end result was a film that was sympathetic to the defendants, while remaining fairly evenhanded in its coverage of the case. Many viewers remained undecided on the teenagers' innocence, and few wanted to place the blame on the stepfather with any certainty. That ambiguity has all but evaporated in the new sequel, Revelations: Paradise Lost 2.
Berlinger and Sinofsky have said they view themselves as "nonfiction filmmakers" rather than documentarians. They believe in letting a story tell itself, objectively capturing events as they unfold, and later assembling them into a realistic portrait. In their first film, Brother's Keeper, and to a slightly lesser degree in Paradise Lost, they demonstrate a rigorous mastery of this style. Many scenes in Paradise Lost feel almost too real, making the viewer a voyeur into conversations and emotions that seem deeply private.
Though we still find this sense of accidental discovery in Revelations, it is less frequent. In its place are scenes that seem heavily directed or even staged; less traditionally objective than manipulative. Through each of Berlinger and Sinofsky's films, we can trace a gradual shift from the morally neutral, direct-cinema approach of Brother's Keeper to the heavily manipulated style of Revelations. Incidentally, Berlinger carries this progression full circle as the director of the upcoming Blair Witch sequel, a completely fictional "documentary."
The blame for Revelation's lack of spontaneity cannot be laid entirely on the directors, however. They faced severe limits on their access to key people and events--perhaps the price they had to pay for the remarkably candid shots in Paradise Lost. Cameras were not allowed inside the courtroom during the most recent appeal trial; and out of all the people who appeared in the first film, only Byers, the defendants, their families, and a handful of others agreed to be filmed in the sequel.
The results of Berlinger and Sinofsky's attempts to fill the gaps are mixed. For the most part, the film still manages to keep a grip on the viewer, buoyed by mood-enhancing Metallica songs (provided by the band for free!). Fans of the first film will want to see Revelations if only to view the defendants, all grown up now and much more articulate. Damien Echols, in particular, exhibits a stunning transformation from vain goth boy to short-haired, bespectacled, white-shirted intellectual.
Indeed, the only truly shocking "revelation" is a particular piece of new evidence: human bite marks on the face of one of the victims, which do not match the dental impressions of any of the three accused. At this point, it's clear that the directors have left any pretense of objectivity behind, and are going far beyond proving the innocence of the West Memphis Three. They're gunning for Byers, who somehow lost all his natural teeth after the murders, and thus cannot be tested for a bite-mark match.
Admittedly, it would be difficult to find anyone more persistently self-incriminating than Byers. If his hulking frame, oddly shaped forehead, and druggy slowness weren't frightening enough, he grabs every possible opportunity to hog the spotlight in WWF-style performances, spewing out exaggerated hell-fire venom against the alleged killers. He contradicts himself repeatedly, and with every word digs another layer of his own grave. But Berlinger and Sinofsky let Byers' grandstanding take over far too much of the film, and as every piece of the puzzle starts to point more toward Byers as the actual killer, the film becomes more clearly manipulated in that direction. There's no doubt that Byers should be thoroughly investigated--for the child murders as well as his wife's mysterious death in 1996 from "undetermined" causes. But here's where the filmmakers seem to pervert their own goals. While only the truly ignorant could remain unconvinced of the defendants' innocence after viewing all the new evidence, should the injustice against the West Memphis Three be replaced by another case of bias and circumstantial evidence, this time against Byers? Sure, the guy is clearly not all there, and he is one of the scariest people to ever walk the face of the earth. Does that make him a murderer? But he's so creepy, you say. Aha. Just what all those dumbass hicks thought of the first defendants.
Free the West Memphis Three! Just don't start any more witch hunts in the process.
For more information on the case, go to www.wm3.org.
