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Evita

The story of Maria Eva Peron

Evita, cert. PG
Produced by Alan Parker

A new nine-screen cinema has just opened in our town. From the large menu of films on offer we chose to see EVITA, the 1970s Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice musical now brought to the big screen and starring Madonna.
It very loosely tells the story of Maria Eva Peron (born Duarte). In the film she is born in some country place and follows a suave singer (Jimmy Nail, would you believe?) to the Buenos Aires. Actually she was born in Buenos Aires in 1919. Illegitimately born of the mistress of a well-to-do man, she is excluded from her father's funeral by his family, and thus the grudge against the middle classes becomes the motivation behind her life. The consummate opportunist, in the city she chooses a number of sleazy liaisons with men to climb a ladder leading eventually to a successful career as a radio actress.
In 1945 she met and married Juan Peron, a rising politician, amid the restless violence of the times in Argentina. After Peron became President, she virtually ran the government ministries of health and labour, and did a great deal of charitable work. The theme of the film is that this is all very much to fulfil her own lust for power and position, as all the time she is honing her image of glamour. In 1951 she stood for the post of vice-president, but was opposed by the Argentinian military and had to withdraw. All this is very confused in the film. She died soon afterwards of cancer at age 33.
Visually the film is impressive. Musically Evita has two good tunes. 'Don't cry for me, Argentina', and 'Another suitcase in another hall'. The second is meant to be sung by Peron's previous mistress who is ousted by Evita, but in the film it is rather clumsily re-positioned so that it can be sung by Madonna - it doesn't fit and it shows.
The themes which emerge are at the heart of postmodernism. Life is about personal choice, even if it requires using other peoples as pawns. There is no morality at all. Life is about image and image is deceptive. The masses (sheep without a shepherd) idolise Evita. She is one of them who has made it to the top She is the saviour of the nation. But all this is a deception, as she herself is being used by the upper classes and even her husband, to maintain their position. This is articulated by the 'Che Guevara' character who sees her as having betrayed her roots. 'Don't cry for me, Argentina' actually means 'Do cry for me, Argentina'. And sympathetically we do cry, for whatever choices she makes, she cannot choose to avoid death. Thus the film leaves the audience extremely sad: a sermon on deception and death, exposing how much a lost world needs the Lord, without whom we are all sheep without a shepherd.
We emerged from the cinema and went to the Haagen Daz ice-cream stand which gives you so many possible choices of combinations of flavour that it resembles a post-modern hell. My friend bought me the strawberry cheesecake coupled with vanilla. But I went away anxious, feeling betrayed that perhaps I could have chosen something better.

JEB
Dr John Benton