|
EVITA opens. Directed by Alan Parker, from a screenplay written by Parker and Oliver Stone, based on the hit West End and Broadway musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. Utilising every inch of its panoramic frame, Parker's sweeping musical itinerary of dusty roads, cheap hotel rooms, smokey dance floors and teeming town squares brings a physical conviction to the social and political forces which shaped and perpetuated the Evita legend. And while Jonathan Pryce, who is a dead ringer for Juan Peron and Antonio Banderas as Che Guavera, the one man Greek chorus that provides a singing commentary on the unfolding events, both display an impressive vocal range, it is Madonna who really does carry the whole shebang. When she walks out onto that balcony to the familiar and haunting strains of Don't Cry For Me Argentina, it becomes patently obvious that she really was born to play the part.
