2007: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Burton, 2007) 9/10

"I Will Have Vengeance! (Sweeney Todd)

Since the days of the "penny dreadfuls," Victorian London's dank and dark narrow streets have offered us a cornucopia of thieves, swindlers and murderers. From Dickensian workhouses to Jack the Ripper, 19th century London has been mythologized as a sordid terminal for criminal activities; subsequently branding a series of gloomy images into our minds and cultural impressions.

Whilst the age brought us scientific advancements by Charles Darwin and Alexander Graham Bell, it is the bloodlust, exploitation and deviousness lying within the belly of an elephantine empire that modern culture remains most interested in.
Recorded in the literature of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson and Charles Dickens, these themes and motifs have been extended and preserved by Hollywood.

In 1980, David Lynch directed the masterful The Elephant Man about John Merrick, whose disfigurement was showcased for commercial profit; in 2001, Johnny Depp entered these quarters as an opium-addled detective in From Hell a stylish, underrated period thriller by the Hughes brothers. In 2007, Depp once again forayed into the seedy underbelly of Victorian Britain in Tim Burton's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's 1979 musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

The title character is an amalgamation of fact, fiction and urban legend: a serial killer driven to madness and obsession after his true love is taken away from him. In the film, Johnny Depp stars as Benjamin Barker, a renowned and happily married Fleet Street barber, who is sent to fifteen years of hard labour in the colonies on false charges by Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman); a sinister figure who lusts for Barker's young wife. Rescued by sailor Anthony Hope (Jamie Campbell Bower), Barker returns to London vowing vengeance on those who stole his life from him.

Upon re-emerging in London, Barker finds his former home is now a rundown restaurant owned by Nellie Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) who gleefully serves "the worst pies in London." Hearing that his wife has poisoned herself and his daughter is now a ward of the Judge, Barker re-fashions himself as Sweeney Todd and along with the smitten Lovett plots his revenge. He is further assisted in his plans by Anthony Hope who, after catching a glimpse of Todd's daughter Johanna (Jayne Wiesner), yearns for her heart.

While Nellie Lovett lusts for Todd's broken heart, the brooding and impatient barber begins to utilize his profession for barbary, rather than barbering. To placate his embittered soul and cravings for cruel justice, Todd begins to transform his acts of violence into a singular and calculated act of reprisal, but into a random outburst against a society at large that has allowed for the destruction and wasted hours of his life.

The specter of obsession dominates Burton's film. These obsessions are usually of the heart, in the hope of obtaining a desired figure. Yet, these possessive lusts are often one-sided and selfish: lacking a reciprocal beating of hearts. The one-dimensional nature of these overriding infatuations is ultimately crushing. Only those with a mutual love obtain the happiness they desire. For others, their compulsions hasten their downfall and the destruction of their facile minded souls.

Similarly, the film's sub-narrative regarding the content of Lovett's pies is also indicative of a society that gorges upon violence and is willing to accept murderousness as a necessary component. As Lovett changes the ingredients in her pies, she gains a previously absent degree of fame and fortune, in spite of the macabre composition of her creations. Yet, as Burton's film and Sondheim's musical note, only one figure begs to question the morality of those consuming Lovett's pies. Interestingly, this character is an insane homeless woman, whose own fractured sense of scope is able to see through the advertising and falseness associated with Lovett's mini-enterprise.

Throughout his career, Burton has not been a director associated with extensive socio-political commentary in his films and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is no exception. Rather like Vincente Minnelli before him, Burton is an aesthete: a visual artist who creates fantastic images imbued with the grotesque and maligned in society. Like Sleepy Hollow and Edward Scissorhands, Burton channels the familiar Gothic tones of his filmography into a stylish, blood-soaked musical that never descends into parody.

Burton and his cast do not turn the picture into an excessive pantomime. Both Depp and Bonham Carter are perfectly cast in their roles. The actors sing in naturalistic tones that fervently express their frenzied emotional states. Depp's character is reigned in not through visceral bombast, but the sulking anguish within his soul. His frantic hair and melancholy blackened eyes are those of a man suffering from an incurable insomnia brought upon by tragedy and extirpation. Despite, her gloomy appearance, Bonham Carter's Nellie is a wonderfully naive figure, driven by her salacious attitude toward the barber; a point exemplified in an imaginative sequence in which Lovett daydreams about their future.

Alan Rickman is deftly cast as the imposing Judge. While Rickman is usually selected for his deep vocal tones, his seething eyes and imposing figure are perfectly suited for his character. The villainous supporting cast including Sascha Baron Cohen as the faux-Italian rival barber Pirelli and Timothy Spall as the Judge's henchmen Beadle Bramford offer deliciously poisonous vehicles for Todd to act out his revenge.

Utilizing the sadness and hate within his characters, Burton crafts an internalized musical. Unlike traditional Hollywood musicals, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is not a bombastic colourful romp. Rather it is a bitingly dark disclosure of the soul. Under the auspices of another director, the feelings and emotions divulged through songs of rage could easily have turned into extraneous feats. Yet, in Burton's hands, these sentiments are closeted entries into the private enclaves of humanity. The result is a rich, blackened musical of the human spirit and the raw obsessive reactions it emits.

One of the best films of 2007.

* Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is released by Warner Brothers

Other Tim Burton Films Reviewed:
Big Fish (2003) 9/10

Copyright 2008 8½ Cinematheque