23 out of 23 people found the following review helpful:
Paradise Lost 1 + 2
SAI81 from from Tonbridge,
28th February, 2007
I read about the West Memphis 3 about five years ago. Immediately I was enraged. How in the name of all that is good and holy could a man be on death row on 'evidence' such as this? It's taken a long time for the celebrated documentaries about the case to make their way to UK DVD and so I'm very pleased to have finally seen them. Taken together these two films add up to an exhaustive 4 hour and 40 minute document of one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice you can imagine. Filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky began the first film thinking they were on their way to West Memphis to make a simple film about a murder trial. They had assumed that the film would be one about three guilty murderers and the process of law around them and the impact of the crime and trial on the community. What they came out with is much more disturbing and much more interesting. The court cases are laid out in Paradise Lost in admirably even handed fashion. Berlinger and Sinofsky make sure that they sure the prosecution scoring points just as much as they do the defence, they leave it to you to act as jury. At the centre of the film are two extraordinary characters. Damien Echols the 18 year old 'ringleader' of the WM3 is his own worst enemy; vain, depressed and very open about his interest in the wiccan religion he seems not to take his predicament very seriously. Echols and his co-defendant (baby faced 16 year old Baldwin) never bang the table, never scream their innocence, it's as if they are stunned into silence by what is taking place. John Mark Byers, the stepfather of Christopher Byers (one of the the three eight year old boys of whose murder Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley are accused of) is perhaps the film's most memorable character. He's a bundle of contradictions, a respected lay preacher, yet a violent man he and his wife Melissa are the most vengeful of the parents. Byers also acts in ways that bring him under suspicion of these crimes (giving the filmmakers a bloodstained hunting knife for Christmas), a fact adressed more overtly in the second film. Structured like a thriller with plot revelations unfolding at regular intervals Paradise Lost would be a masterpiece if it were fiction. As documentary it's an astonishing piece of work; involving, important and deeply, depply sad. Revelations: Paradise Lost 2 is a less even handed film. With Damien Echols now on death row (where, sadly, he remains) it concerns itself with an early appeal in his process. Also participating this time are members of the Free the West Memphis 3 group and John Mark Byers returns (the only member of the victim families to do so). Much of the film centers on Byers. Since Paradise Lost rumours have swirled round him that he may have been involved in the killings and even if he was not tis film presents a man who needs to be asked to prove that beyond reasonable doubt given the many and varying stories he's spun around the circumstances of the killings. Echols is much different in this film. More mature at 24 he's obviously intelligent and seems a very settled and sedate person, particularly given his circumstances. There were no cameras in the courtrooms this time but that's not to say that Berlinger and Sinofsky come up short of indelible moments. A webchat between Damien and WM3 supporters is a highlight, as is a desperately sad phone call between Damien and his Mother. The images people will take away, however, are of Byers. Byers standing in flames as he burns makeshift 'graves' of Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley. Byers saying 'I knew I was innocent' as he passes (while on heavy medication) a lie detector test. Neither Paradise Lost film offers answers, hell neither even offers hope. These films are bleak, distressing, sick making viewing, and you you need to see them. People need to know about this case, need to get angry about it before it's too late for Damien Echols.
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