Australian film-maker Fred Schepisi often deals with
conflicts within communities or a family brought upon by destructive forces.
His directorial debut, The Devil’s Playground (1976) was a witty and shrewd
examination of the sexual repression and other constraints within a Catholic
seminary. He followed it up with one of the best works in his oeuvre, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978), based on the 1972 novel of same name by Thomas
Keneally (who also wrote the Booker-prize winning novel Schindler’s Ark in 1982).
The titular character in The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is a half-aborigine who
gets bombarded with abuse from his white employers. At one point, his anger reaches
a breaking point. Jimmie takes an ax to a houseful of children and women, and
commits a horrifying massacre. In the process, the exploited Aboriginal man
becomes a feared outlaw (the novel is based on the real story of bush-ranger
Jimmy Governor). Even though, Mr. Schepisi details Jimmie’s brutal slaying of a
white family in a disturbing manner, his views are all-inclusive, questioning
the prejudices of white establishment that led the Aboriginal man to perpetrate
a horrific act.
In the 1980s, Fred Schepisi started making films in US,
including a decent western (‘Barbarosa’) and a comedy starring Steve Martin
(‘Roxanne’). With the 1988 film, A Cry in the Dark (aka Evil Angels) Schepisi returned
to Australia which was based on a major news story that made waves in and
around Australian continent. Mr. Schepisi co-wrote the script with Robert
Caswell; the tragic true event detailed in John Bryson’s non-fiction book (Evil
Angels) remained as the source for the script. Although the events in ‘A Cry in
the Dark’ take place after lot of decades than the crime detailed in The Chant
of Jimmie Blacksmith, the director’s focus lies in portraying how a prejudiced
society and the court of public opinion paints everything in black-and-white.
The protagonist in A Cry in the Dark leads a far better life
than the oppressed Aboriginal lead character in The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith.
Lindy Chamberlain (Meryl Streep) is the wife of a Seventh-Day Adventist
minister, Michael (Sam Neill) and a doting mother of two little sons and a
infant daughter. The film opens with the christening of Lindy’s nine-week-old
baby Azaria. A truck driver looking at the gathering of Seventh-Day Adventists
passes a rude comment on them, hinting at the wide misunderstanding of the
religious minority and also forebodes the harsh judgment that’s to be passed on
the Chamberlain family.
Lindy and Michael take their two sons and their baby
daughter on a camping trip to Ayers Rock. Michael cooks vegetarian sausages,
Lindy bathes Azaria in a little tub, cold beers are passed around, tents are
erected, and dingoes wait for the scraps thrown away by the campers. On the
night of their stay, Lindy put Azaria to sleep in the tent. She briefly talks
with another camper family before getting interrupted by the baby’s cry. The
cry is cut-short abruptly and as Lindy returns to the tent, she sees a dingo
emerging with something in its mouth, and runs off into the dark. There’s blood
on the blanket. Panicked, Lindy runs to her husband screaming, “The dingo's got
my baby!”
Wielding torches, the lawmen and fellow campers thoroughly
search the area, and unable to find the baby they arrive at the obvious
conclusion that the baby is dead. The tragedy that befell Chamberlein family,
however, didn’t end there. Australian media and public didn’t want to believe
in the story of dingo taking a baby. Moreover, Michael’s weird way of
rationalizing 'why God would take their little daughter' in the news interviews
puts him under the scrutiny of arm-chair pundits. The rumor mill and media
circus begin to work together, quibbling over every little mannerism and action
of the Chamberlein family. Their religious affiliation makes it easy to paint
them as a villain, and soon Azaria’s death is alleged to be a ritual sacrifice.
When the baby’s bloodied dress was found, the incompetent police force of Ayers
Rock begin to rely on circumstantial evidence and obscure forensic reports to
doubt Lindy. The initial assessment in the court rules in favor of Lindy,
particularly condemning the media for the way it held public court of opinion.
Nevertheless, the lawmen allege that they found a bloody hand-print on the baby’s dress and that blood was found sprayed all over the
underside of the dash board in the Chamberleins’ car. The case is reopened and
Lindy becomes center of attention in a malicious campaign of slander. Director
Schepisi often cuts the trials and tribulations faced by Michael and Linda to
the dinner parties, saloons, and card games where the Australian public
nonchalantly and repeatedly declares Lindy to be the guilty party. Lindy sees tee-shirts in front of courtroom decorated with words: “The Dingo is Innocent”. Some
of the journalists seem to be worse than a baby-killing-dingo, who’d do anything for the sake of sniffing out a story. Even though Lindy is turned into
an object of entertainment, she remains resolute, self-contained, and believes
that at the end of the courtroom proceedings the truth will set her free.
At one point in the narrative, even Lindy’s lawyers ask her
to emote more for the jury, at least to play the role of a grieving mother.
Lindy just wants to be the way she is, but the perceived iciness is further
claimed as the proof of her guiltiness. Michael reacts in a different manner
from Lindy. Being a sensitive man, Michael buckles under the pressure. He’s
assumed as the ‘weak’ accomplice to the ‘evil’ woman. Those who have never
heard of Lindy’s story would be shocked by the verdict passed by the jury. She
was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. After serving
three-and-a-half years behind bars, a crucial piece of evidence proved that
Lindy was innocent. An appeals court eventually overturned her conviction and
Lindy was released. Lindy’s case is a classic example of miscarriage of
justice, all happened because she was deemed guilty in the court of public
opinion; an opinion persistently peddled by the ghouls and cutthroats in the
media.
A Cry in the Dark clearly has more relevance in our times as
the means for public to pass judgment on any idiosyncratic behavior has become
much easier. Although this is the story of Lindy Chamberlein, Fred Schepisi
meticulously crafts the story in a manner that it becomes the deeply felt
portrait of a very judgmental community (which is universal in nature). The
narrative could have used more ambiguity, but by unfolding the events from
Lindy’s perspective, Schepisi intricately examines how far a society goes when
it deems an individual unlikable. Furthermore, Meryl Streep’s portrayal of
Lindy which allows her to be cynical and frigid adds more complexity to the
drama. In fact, Schepisi’s decision to not approach Lindy’s tale as a true-crime
mystery works pretty well due to Streep’s perfectly composed performance. And
gradually, Streep’s Lindy earns our sympathy, not exactly because we ‘like’
her’, but because we believe in her innocence and due to the rage we feel over
the press’ witch hunt. It’s interesting to see how the media doesn’t miss a
beat when it covers Lindy’s exoneration with the same relish it showed when it
was keen to put her behind bars. The things these malevolent beings do for a
good story! How they twist a simple truth when exhibiting it in the public
realm! And how our own lust for entertainment perceives everything in a binary
manner!
Overall, A Cry in the Dark (120 minutes) is an unpretentious and outstanding dramatization of a court-case in which an individual is condemned for not behaving in the ‘right’
way.
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