'Evita' lacks depth, but oozes with Madonnaness

'Evita' lacks depth, but oozes with Madonnaness

By Laksmi Pamuntjak-Djohan

JAKARTA (JP): When it first hit Broadway in 1978, Evita was
hailed as the most cinematic of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals.
Despite that label, it has taken nearly two decades and a score
of unsuccessful directors no less than Francis Ford Coppola,
Richard Attenborough and Oliver Stone, for the story to make the
stage-to-screen transition. Alan Parker, whose music-laden movie
credits include Fame and The Commitments, finally won the trophy,
casting Antonio Banderas, Jonathan Pryce and Madonna in the title
role.

It is hard not to react to Alan Parker's Evita. The visual
impact is truly electrifying. Shot in rich sepia tones by
cinematographer Darius Khondji (Seven, Delicatessen), it evokes
the fantasy of lost times envisioned by Webber. But, as dazzling
a cinematic spectacle as it is -- packed from beginning to end
with such sheer theatrical opulence -- it is somewhat hollow at
the center, as if lacking a soul. For all its stunning
cinematography, energetic performances, knockout crowd scenes and
high-charged songs, the movie has a cold, somewhat sumptuous
quality.

Establishing the criteria for reviewing Evita, however, is no
simple task. First of all, the subject is a daunting one. Eva
Duarte Peron, the wife of Argentina's populist president Juan
Peron of the 1940s and early 1950s, was a controversial figure
who was as much a heroine as a villain in the eyes of her people.
She was as famous for her furs and diamonds and charitable
foundations as for salting away her own charity funds. However,
while worse people have been memorialized, very few have been
depicted in a hit musical -- the second problematic fact
especially when it involves the issue of interpretation.

As in the play, Eva's life story is narrated by a skeptic
named Che (Antonio Banderas), a sort of a one-man voice of public
opinion always questioning Eva's motives and doubting her ideals.
Since the politics of the original Evita is interestingly neutral
in exhorting double visions of icons of the right and the left,
Che is like a ubiquitous device whose purpose is to bring balance
and prevent the work from sugar-coating the complexity of Eva's
character. Although Banderas' smoldering performance gives us a
strong sense of Eva's superficial qualities and essential non-
importance, it is clear that the film tries to depict her as a
more sympathetic Eva Peron than is portrayed on stage.

While the stage version has a reputation for depicting Eva
Peron as a conniving character, this movie version tries to
explain her obsessive drive to be famous as a psychological need
for acceptance. The movie's flashback to her impoverished
childhood as an illegitimate and rejected daughter of a wealthy
padrone seems to underscore this. Vain she certainly is, but
never harsh.

We never really see much of Eva's politics beyond her allying
herself to the Descamisados and avenging herself against the
middle and upper classes. Neither do we see much of Juan Peron's
role beyond getting freed from prison because of Eva's
broadcasts, winning elections because of Eva's campaigns, and
legitimizing his regime because of Eva's fame. It obviously takes
an actor of Jonathan Pryce's caliber to be able to give Peron all
the dignity that is possible for a man so relegated to playing
second fiddle to his wife.

But therein lies the problem. Granted, as a historical film
Evita is limited to the perfunctory musical script on which it is
based, so don't expect it to be an accurate lesson in Argentine
history or in Peronist politics. For a start, it is difficult to
portray any sort of reality with an artificial setting in which
people burst into song in the course of daily life. However, the
movie's positive spin on Eva's character puts serious slants on
certain historical facts.

For example, it suggests that she declined her long-sought
nomination for the vice presidency because of her terminal
cancer. In fact, the military powers had informed her husband
that a coup was brewing unless he put an end to her rise to
power. Thus she virtually had no choice but to step down.

Be that as it may, Hollywood's euphoric interest in her life
story is understandable. It is the ultimate rags-to-riches story
-- a country girl rising from poverty to stardom, marrying a
country's most influential politician, inspiring the idolatry of
the masses for her right mix of show biz and social largesse, and
dying very young, at 32, from ovarian cancer. From the moment
Andrew Lloyd Webber invented Evita, he knew it need not get
caught in the nuts and bolts of fascist politics to anticipate
everything from music videos to today's kinky fascination with
celebrity.

Musical

Evita tells Eva Peron's story almost entirely in song with
virtually no spoken lines in between, making it more of a post-
modern operetta than a traditional musical. While other
celebrated movie musicals such as The King and I and The Sound of
Music allow ample space for the occasional dialog, Evita
concentrates on the big musical numbers while ignoring the
connecting words that provide opportunities for character
interaction and development.

For the musically uninitiated, the schizoid changes in key and
tempo can get pretty disconcerting. There also comes a point when
the relentless juxtaposition of music and visuals becomes
unnerving, as some images go by too quickly to be understood to
start with, let alone when ravaged by Parker's constant cranking
up of Webber's score.

And finally we come to the center of all the hype, Madonna.
Granted, she shares a similar promiscuous background as Eva Peron
-- the vaultingly ambitious material girl from the sticks who
became one of the world's most popular women. Much better with a
dialog-free script, her singing has also improved, yet she still
can't convey anything beyond surface appeal.

First of all, Madonna doesn't come remotely close to having
the presence to carry a movie about one of the most powerful
women of the 20th century. She can neither convey Eva's charisma
nor her legend because she is practically playing herself. The
greatest irony about casting her in Eva's role is that there is
so much Madonna-ness in Evita that our reaction to Eva Peron's
character may be subconsciously based on whether or not we like
Madonna.

Even for soundtrack purposes, Madonna's thin and fabricated
voice lacks the depth and soul of her predecessors Elaine Page
and Patti LuPone. It neither grips nor moves one, even when she
sings Don't Cry For Me, Argentina.

The original musical score undergoes few radical changes, with
only one new addition titled You Must Love Me. Buenos Aires, Big
Apple, the ditsy awakening song, gets a percussive swirl to match
Eva's stampeding hormones, and I'd Be Surprisingly Good For You
oozes class. While most of the songs are so jangly that they seem
stuck in the 1970s, the infectious pomposity of Webber's
compositions hold up pretty well overall. Sadly missing, however,
is the deadly game of musical chairs among Argentine generals in
The Art Of The Possible -- perhaps because the generals only get
to appear twice as a group, and even then only very briefly.

All in all, Evita impresses more than it moves, dazzles more
than it transports. To quote Che, "The best show in town was the
crowd outside the Casa Rosada crying Eva Peron!" But even if
only for that, it still is an unquestionably solid and must-see
accomplishment in the history of screen musicals.