The church organ wails as crimson blood spills over cobblestone onto the gears of some apparatus built by a demented mind. Thus begins Tim Burton’s grimtale of “Sweeney Todd: TheDemonBarber of Fleet Street.”
Set in a decaying and an industrially revolting 19th-century London, the film, which is based onStephenSondheim’s hitBroadway musical, depicts how a society of misplaced power can transforma simple andmeek barber, Benjamin Barker, into a monster (aka Sweeney Todd), who will ruthlessly kill the masses in an effort to seek revenge.
The antithesis of Burton’s “Edward Scissorheads,” “Sweeney Todd” ismost definitely not a story of an uncommonly gentleman.Although Johnny Depp got to wield sharp cutting instruments in both films, in “Scissorhands” he portrayed amanwho gave the society that abandoned him a second chance,whereas in “Todd” he’s a broken spirit who willingly goes down the rabbit hole never to return.
Depp plays the part of Todd as if rigormortis has already set in and further sets the tone of a ship lost at sea by singing with vocals reminiscent of the late Syd Barret. Unlike Barret, who had an eyebrow shaving tendency, Todd’s straight razors go straight for the jugular. Burton shows no restraint when it comes to gore, and for 1 hour and 57 minutes, the film and all of its stars gush blood andmusic.
One can only imagine how challenging a musicalmust be for seasoned filmactorswho rarely get called upon to performvocal feats. Depp and Helena Bonham Carter (Mrs. Lovett) both have pleasing singing voices that accompany the harmony and dissonance in Sondheim’s music well. However, the singing in and of itself seems to have restrained what these actors usually channel through them to physically manifest their characters.
Often the film looks like an opera, with little body movement. The director mainly used close-up andmediumshots,which leave little room for the artistic extravagance in scenery that viewers have come to expect from Burton films. The viewpoint Burton chose to look at these characters with could best be described as a better glimpse for “the children of paradise,” which is a term theaters use for thosewith theworst viewof the stage.
The director’s vision is not completely lost in trying to restage themusical for the benefit of those in the cheap, nosebleed seats, since the film is still visually stunning. The desaturated black, white and gray palette used in most scenes lends itself well to romanticizing Todd’s killings.
When the shadows finally do break for a moment during a sequencewhenMrs. Lovett professes her love for Todd, the audience finally gets to feelBurton taking it by the hand to that dreamworld only hismind could create. For a brief interlude near the end of the film, viewers are transported to that whimsical place where everything is seen as if through the eyes of a child. However, unlike most Burton films, getting to such a place is not the goal of the characters in “Sweeney Todd,” it is their fleeting and unattainable dream.
In fact, the inner child manifesting through Todd is not the typical one who can see through to the core of good in the world, but the onewho came into thisworld andwill undoubtedly leave it as an uncontrollable and unsatisfiable baby.
Dissatisfaction describes every character in the film. Evenmost of the children are alcoholics. The onlywarmth beyond that given off by all of the freshly spilled blood emanates from Johana (Jayne Wisener) and Anthony Hope (Jamie Campbell Bower).
Hope attempts to rescue Johana fromthe clutches of the man who destroyed Todd, Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman). Turpin adopted Johana, who is Todd’s daughter, after he exiled Todd. However, the villain does not love Johanna like a daughter and instead wants to force her to marry him. To do so, he has locked her in a tower-like room where she can only imagine a normal existence through warped panes of glass.
Hope hears Johana singing and falls deeply in love. Wisener by far has the most spectacular voice in the film. She sings as
softly and sweetly as a canary and accentuates how all of the characters in the story are in essence trapped in some sort of cage.
Hope pursues Johana and eventually rescues her from the clutches of the incestuous judge. However, the finale of their love story is never told. The audience does not get a chance to see if they remain together or if society will continue to tear themapart.
Another continuity flaw in the film, which isminor, occurs in the depiction ofMrs. Lovett’s shop. Shemakesmeat pies belowan upstairs roomwhere Todd sets to his barbaric duties. Todd fashions his barber chair to conveniently “clean up” once he has given his patrons “the closest shave they’ll ever know.” The chair revolves backward in order to allow his customers to exit via the furnace in the basement below. However, the trapdoor contraption doesn’t seem to take into account that Lovett should bemakingmeat pies just below.
Overall, the filmis strange,which should gowithout saying, since it is a horror filmset tomusic. Viewerswanting to see the reinterpretation of the musical probably won’t be disappointed, but the bursts-into-song in every scenewon’t- to the average viewer- gowellwith themaliciousmeat-pie plot Todd and Lovett have devised.
Most of the characters are mean-spirited and vain,whichmakes it difficult to stay interested, and again, the stories of the two characters that viewers could invest themselves in, Johana andHope, are never resolved.
This filmis definitely not for the weak of heart or stomach and would most likely appeal to those looking for something dark and sinister. There are brief moments of humor and zaniness, especially from Sacha Baron Cohen, who plays Signor Adolfo Pirelli. The actor best known for “Ali G” and “Borat” actually pays homage to some of the characteristics his famous characters are known for in his part in “Sweeney Todd.” One wonders if his choice to do so was to place an exclamation point on some of his fellow actors’ failures to be consistent with the accents they chose to use in the film.
But cut throats don’t have any accents, and if it’s blood, guts and gore you’re looking for, they’re all in store with “Sweeney Todd.”