Paradise Lost is the name of an epic poem by John Milton, a dark rock band from the UK and three documentaries made by HBO in 1996, 2000 and 2011 about the three teenagers in West Memphis, Arkansas who were convicted of the grisly murders of three young boys. The title doesn’t fit the documentary but neither do the charges. West Memphis is sub culture plunge, so deep the real life characters tend to overwhelm the details of the story. After watching the first episode I couldn’t get the accent and presence of the key players out of my head. Maybe it’s because I lived in a trailer (pronounced “tray-ler”) in southern Indiana for a few years. They smoke and pull their teeth out on camera. The accused teenagers dressed in black and liked Metallica whose music is used to great effect throughout the three films. The small town cops and judge saw Satanism and railroaded the jury into convicting.
Three documentaries on the same subject seems excessive. They wander and tug you crazy directions. When I saw the third installment sitting next to our tv I thought what more could they possibly add to this story but it keeps digging deeper and getting better. The clumsy movie making is somehow a virtue. The big budget “West of Memphis” movie by Amy Berg and Peter Jackson is in our queue but I expect it to be heavy handed by comparison.
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