Meryl Louise P. Piñon BASS Political Science – I Comm 2 - K

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
(Movie Review)

What would you do if everyone you love was taken away from you? Are you going to stand and stare and wait for them to return? Or would you dare to take revenge to the person who took everything from you? Here comes now the story of Benjamin Parker, or more known as Sweeney Todd. Benjamin Barker, arguably the most accomplished barber in all Victorian London, is married to the pretty Lucy, the two who have an infant daughter, Johanna. Lusting after Lucy, a sadistic judge named Turpin wrongfully has Barker sent to prison in Australia so that he can have Lucy to himself. Fifteen years later, Barker, who has rechristened himself Sweeney Todd, returns to London to seek revenge by killing Turpin and his accomplice Beadle Bamford, using the instruments of his trade to slit their throats. Below Todd's old barber shop is now a meat pie shop run by Mrs. Lovett, who admits to making the worst meat pies in London. She tells Todd that Lucy poisoned herself after being raped by Turpin, and that Johanna, now a young woman, is Turpin's ward. Johanna and a young honorable sailor named Anthony Hope, who Todd met, sailing into London, have fallen in love with each other from afar. Much like his feelings for Lucy, Turpin lusts after Johanna and wants to marry her, and thus he will do whatever he needs to get Anthony out of the way. Back at the barber shop, Todd changes his plans for revenge solely on Turpin and Beadle out of circumstance, which includes an encounter with a rival barber named Adolfo Pirelli and a close encounter with Turpin himself. Including Turpin and Beadle, Todd's revenge is now directed at all mankind that has wronged him. Todd is helped in his new endeavour by Mrs. Lovett, who has an interesting role in their collective scheme. Todd may reconsider his new collaboration with Mrs. Lovett if he were to learn her true motivations. Critically acclaimed Hollywood director has once again collaborated with Johnny Depp in making this movie which was Burton’s cinematic take on the classic Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical. Their latest collaboration to date is Dark Shadows, a film based on the 1966–1971 gothic soap opera of the same name. This superbly crafted adaptation of Sondheim's most operatic musical is grim even by Burton's standards, and yet despite the frequent slashing of throats with silver hand razors, it contains many quotable and almost chirpy melodies that never let you forget this is based on a musical that once played along the Great White Way.
The story is mainly about revenge and how revenge eats itself up. In that sense it’s a tragedy in the classic tradition about someone who goes out for revenge and ends up destroying himself. Trust, lies and betrayal are the ideals that are tackled in the movie, as shown in the scenes where Todd believed Mrs. Lovett’s statement of the supposedly suicide of the wife of Todd and the part where Todd realizes that Mrs. Lovett lied to him.
However, few of the relationships in the film are developed in an artistic or compelling way. They are largely excuses for the musical interludes and the cut. We are expected to take on faith, for example, Todd’s undying love for his wife, but we see no real evidence of it. And he’s not moved to any course of action by the fate of his daughter. The latter’s connection with Anthony is as weak as one encounters in the flimsiest Hollywood effort. Todd and Mrs. Lovett threaten to have moments of genuine contact, but very little emerges.
The movie is dark, as seen in its genre and I was quite impressed with the performance of Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp as Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd/Benjamin Parker, respectively.
In this fashion the makers of Sweeney Todd, as well as the critics, become part of the very phenomenon that most likely disturbs and appals them.