Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Saturday, January 12th, 2008
Directed by: Tim Burton
Written By: John Logan & Stephen Sondheim
Cast: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, & Alan Rickman
Runtime: 117 min.
Rating: R
Trailer
Johnny Depp and director Tim Burton reunite once again in the adaptation of Stephen Sodenheim’s 1979 stage musical, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. At once violent and darkly satirical, Sweeney Todd is the sixth collaboration between Burton and Depp, and yet, it is surprisingly monotonous and unremarkable, thanks in large part to the strangely forgettable songs that litter the film. Burton’s uncanny ability to create a world wholly unique to his gothic vision of London is remarkable and one of the redeeming qualities of the film, but this time his visual flair for the dramatic is perfunctory and never elevates the material into more than moody and bloody set pieces with little emotional or narrative payoff.
After 15 years spent in an Australian prison as a wrongly convicted criminal, Todd returns to 19th century London with revenge on his mind and a blood lust for all Londoners in his way. His ire is directed specifically at Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman), a malevolent judge who stole Todd’s wife and infant daughter in order to keep as his own. With the help of Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), a proprietor of a shop specializing in London’s worst meat pies, Todd manages to re-establish himself as a leading barber by collaborating with Mrs. Lovett in a revenge scheme so morbid and macabre, spoiling it would ruin the impact of such a ghoulish enterprise. That is assuming you are not already familiar with the stage musical. Ostensibly, the story is a mixture of The Count of Monte Cristo and Edward Scissorhands, except without Alexandre Dumas’s devious plotting or the latter’s emotional depth.
Sadly, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a gorgeous film to look at but not one that achieves any lasting emotional connection with the characters or their plight. This of course is always the downside with musicals in which exposition - information important to the audience regarding the characters’ back-story and emotional state - is told through an endless parade of tuneless songs. Unless the songs are captivating and memorable, they serve as nothing more than a means of verbally announcing what the characters are going through, and in film, a medium designed to tell a story visually, the technique is flat and lifeless. Apparently, Burton thought the same thing early in Sweeney Todd’s opening third. For example, when Todd arrives in London and first meets Mrs. Lovett, he recounts his family’s tragic encounter with Judge Turpin through song, yet Burton wisely utilizes flashback sequences visualizing the song’s lyrics and Todd’s emotional experience at the time.
In the end, the song is not what is remembered. Instead, Burton’s visuals, in collaboration with Dark City cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, bring the song to life, making it jump from the stage to the screen. It is strange then that Burton abandons the flashbacks so quickly after first using them. Instead, actors sing songs in scenes where they clumsily pacing back and forth, or perform some bit of uninspired business to keep the action moving. Rarely do the visuals, which are so spectacular, work with the narrative, resulting in a tedious film that feels longer than it should be.
Richard X
© Cinephile Magazine, 2008
