Review of Evil Angels (1988) by Edgar C — 18 Nov 2013

Fred Schepisi's sole achievement is mainly two things:

I) A furious denunciation of the mental framing that mass media employs in its communication strategy towards its national audiences.

Ii) A wake-up call for the audiences themselves to be objective, to question everything seen in the media and to have a mature perspective towards any situation while detaching themselves from any racial or religious prejudice that may blind their judgment.

Evil Angels (aka A Cry in the Dark, the international English title made up for adding dramatic effect) moves at a merciless pace, covering whole years in the lives of the characters, moving from one tiny event to the next even if it may seem irrelevant, quickly moving from one comment of a random citizen to another quarrel between either Lindy Chamberlain and Michel Chamberlain or between random Australian citizens in intervals of between 10 to 15 seconds(!). As you progress, you perceive the film as something rushed, as if it was self-aware that it has a limited amount of screen time but also wants to capture every single view and comment ever spoken by everybody directly or indirectly involved in the conflict.

Such technique somewhat mimics the furious editing of the last 30 minutes of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), that is, making a direct statement of social relevance while quickly depicting the effects of the events in the surrounding environment of the main character. The same case applies here. Meryl Streep is the highlight, and thanks to this film, I have seen enough of her filmography to declare her as one of the most gifted and talented actresses of our times, and possibly of all times. She can act with an accent, convincingly, as an angel in the middle of darkness and chaos fighting for her own sense of justice and for the sake of the moral survival of her family amidst a society that blindly makes hypocritical judgments, like if they were the perfect jurors of the world.

How the film jumps from one fragment to the next may put off some audiences. For those not minding the unusual pacing decisions taken by some serious filmmakers during the 80s (such as Sidney Lumet or Costa-Gavras), please see this film. The relevance of its message is, right now, at its highest peak, and for those even seeking something visual that may compensate a couple of other aspects, the editing is sublime, the performances are out of this world, the cinematography is hypnotic (the 80s were good at this, as in Gorillas in the Mist) and Schepisi's attempt to replicate an immature nation is extraordinary just as it is incredibly prophetic.

83/100.