Rama’s SCREEN

Love can make you kill! SWEENEY TODD is one hell of a bloody ride that you just want to experience over and over again. The main character from the TV show Dexter would absolutely fall in love with this movie. From the trail of blood at the opening scene all the way to… the big puddle party of blood spilling everywhere in the dark, dirty basement, SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET reminds us again that violence in movies, when done right, could result in a very artistic and poetic way of telling a story.

Benjamin Barker had a good life, a wife and a child but everything was taken away from him by the evil judge who wants to steal others’ right to happiness. After 15 years, the barber returns and now goes by the name of Sweeney Todd, with the help of a desperate, lonely pie-maker, he will have his revenge.

Long before directors Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) and Peter Jackson (LOTR) put their marks in Hollywood, the term Visionary Director has often been granted onto none other than Tim Burton (Edward Scissorhands, Nightmare before Christmas) who seems to know how to make a movie that’s mindblowing.
Sequences filled with images and visuals that you can feast your eyes on. He manages to do just that with whomever cinematographer he chooses to work with, in this case much props to director of photography Dariusz Wolski.

This is the 6th collaboration between Tim and his son’s godfather, Johnny Depp and so far… it has been a rewarding professional relationship for them and us the audiences a.k.a their fans.
It’s quite refreshing actually to see Johnny Depp going out of his comfort zone to learn singing and dancing in a movie like this, which goes to prove that despite the fact that I dislike him because the ladies are crazy about him, I admit he is one of the most extraordinary, talented actors living today.

It does feel a bit weird to have Tim Burton movie without the accompaniment of his friend the composer Danny Elfman. It’s understandable because this particular movie needs to have songs and music that are already available from the Broadway version.

A bit of a warning to those of you who might have weak stomach: This movie’s got pints and pints of blood, squirting, gushing, covering many grounds. And it has cannibalistic acts, not quite as psychotic as Hannibal Lecter.

I’ve never seen the Broadway play which this movie is based on but I really do enjoy the story.
Each song reflects not only what the character fees at the moment but it also represents the mood of each scene, of how every character reacts to the love they’re feeling in the wrong way or at least using wrong methods to express it.

Mrs. Lovett lies to Sweeney about the existence of his wife and be an accomplice to murder all because she loves Sweeney.
Sweeney is so blinded by revenge he doesn’t bother to find the truth and therefore he doesn’t realize one of the people he would find himself kill is his one true love.
Judge Turpin of course is frustrated by not being able to earn love and so he forces others to love him by any means necessary.
Even the little kid who cares deeply for Mrs Lovett so much so that he would commit a heinous act to prove it.

No matter what you may think about musical movie, whether you hate or love this genre, you will definitely find something about SWEENEY TODD that you can appreciate.. with no regrets.

* Place the cursor on the picture to check my grade for this film