SWEENEY TODD (2007)

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SWEENEY TODD: A BLOODY GOOD BARBER SHOW

By: DavidKobylanski

“This is the tale of an ordinary man who had everything… Until a man of power stole his freedom, destroyed his family and banished him… for life… And in his sorrow, a new man was born…” With wide, dark eyes of beauty Mrs. Lovett pleads for an answer from a ghost, “Benjamin Barker?” To her question, there is only one reply uttered in the third-person, “Not Barker, Sweeney Todd and he will have his revenge.”

It took 28 bloody years for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street to shave his way from Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway as one of the bloodiest musicals ever to the big screen as one of the bloodiest movies of all time, but in a cheerful kind of way. And now thanks to technology, it has taken 3 months for it to jump to a small screen near you as Sweeney Todd is released onto DVD.

On the guided tour: In nineteenth century London lived a barber named Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) and his sweet wife and beautiful child. He loved them both but the vile, corrupt and Honorable Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) sentenced Barker on false charges to Australia, meanwhile capturing his wife and child. After Turpin ravishes the wife, destroying her life until death did them part, the girl Johanna grows up to become the judge's personal prisoner.

As the film quickly opens, Benjamin escapes from prison and sails into London to redeem his dreams he had for 15 years of coming home to a wife and child. But he’s only in for an appetizer. He races through the streets to his former barbershop, where the landlady is still the pale beauty Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), who sells the worst meat pies in London and tells him about the dreary fate of his family. He moves upstairs to his former shop, now a ruin, changes his name to Sweeney Todd and reopens his business but not before serenading his most treasured and cut-throat possessions and tools-of-his-trade.

But so maddening is his rage that he builds an entertaining bonus: a sliding chute that will drop his customers into the basement, head-first, after he slits their throats, so Mrs. Lovett can bake them some pies. More specifically: into some pies. Now she offers the most succulent meat pies in London; business bleeds with demand while some pleased customers go upstairs for their closest shave and a quick recycling.

Johnny Depp shared some blood and sweat for a sixth collaboration with the imagination of Tim Burton, the director of Edward Scissorhands, Big Fish, Sleepy Hollow and Batman! And no team could have done it better as traces of Tim Burton are scattered throughout the production with the fantastically ghoulish, bizarre and yet romantic. The cast is superb as the perfect instruments to pull together the elements of the movie. The film isn’t a campy throwback or a musical fantasy but a glimpse into a realistic world if it were normal to sing with background tunes. Dialogue doesn’t uncomfortably jump from the main characters to some random musical number in the background with an excessive amount of dancers. The music is narrowed down to the main characters and this nicely balances the elements of a musical and a stand-alone film. That being said, you’ll probably need to enjoy musicals to enjoy this movie for the most part, though it does offer something different than conformity or a cookie cutter frame. They’re meat pies after all. It may not be a genre-crossing piece of genius for most but for the open, it’s just a visual masterpiece for your acoustic pallet. That's still pretty good. You don't think of it as a musical, but a film with tunes. A normal regular of Burton’s crew was missing with Danny Elfman having no spot in creating its music as that job was taken by the originator, Stephen Sondheim himself. Dariusz Wolski masters the area of cinematography, fresh from previous work on the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

Sweeney Todd was undervalued at the 80th Annual Academy Awards with only 3 nominations in Best Acting, Best Achievement in Costume Design and in Art Direction while winning in only the last one. This small tally was not due to a lack of talent but more succumbing to the large numbers of respectable movies of 2007 that aimed for the limited nomination-seats in each category for Oscar Gold. It did however go for Golden Globe Gold as it was nominated for the 65th annual Awards, winning two. The film won for Best Motion Picture in the Musical or Comedy genre and Johnny Depp won for his performance as Sweeney Todd. Tim Burton was nominated for Best Director and Helena Bonham Carter was nominated for her performance as Mrs. Lovett. The film has also been included in the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures' top ten films of 2007, and Tim Burton also won their prize for Best Director.

So embark on a murderous rampage one of these evenings and try your blades and appetites at a tasty Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street on DVD.

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