31 Days of Halloween Films #27: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
The Lowdown: A mysterious man returns to London, having been wronged by an evil judge, to seek his vengeance. With the help of a pie maker, he finds a way to get his revenge by any means necessary, even if those means include baking people into fucking meat pies.
The Breakdown: A lot of people are turned off by musicals, and I get it. Suspension of disbelief is a tricky thing, and some people can’t deal with every character singing for most of the runtime of a film. I, however, can, and happen to enjoy a lot of musicals, this being one of my favorites. Sweeney Todd has a sinister and morbidly dark tone, making it a perfect Halloween film but also a solid entry into the realm of period-piece dramas, whether it’s highly stylized or not. Tim Burton used to be a go-to guy for me, before his Alice In Wonderland days. I still love a lot of his films, but I’d have to say that this was his last truly inspired film. From the casting of Johnny Depp and Alan Rickman to the dark and grimy cinematography to, yes, the music, Sweeney Todd is a great piece of entertainment.
I haven’t been too high on the Johnny Depp bandwagon as of late, with roles in The Lone Ranger and the Pirates flicks really doing damage to his street cred. Here, however, he plays yet another outsider/loner for Burton, a murderous barber with vengeance on the brain. Todd has been done well before but I like Depp’s characterization here because he plays it very pitiful. Numerous scenes where he interacts with his daughter and Mrs. Lovett, played by Helena Bonham Carter, display his one track mind, never being able to see the forest through the trees and try to appreciate what he has. It’s a very deep emotional connection that adds plenty of depth to the film. Depp does a good job keeping the focus on Todd’s character and his morality, which is constantly in question. Yes, he has been wronged, but does that really justify him in killing dozens of innocents to exact his revenge on one man?
I identify Burton’s filmmaking style, with some films, as a visual representation of Halloween, or horror in general, so suffice it to say that despite its’ musical inclination Todd is dark and dreary. A musical montage to Todd slitting throats in the barbers’ chair is put together so efficiently you’d almost mistake it for shots of a production line in a car factory. The methodical, cold nature of Todd’s killing is brutal, but it’s dealt with in such a way that as the kill count ramps up during the film, you almost become desensitized to it. For a film so easily brushed aside for the genre it inhabits, Todd delivers the goods in the gore department numerous times.
The Comedown: Sweeney Todd is an underrated masterpiece in Burton’s filmography. While it’s not as archetypal as Batman or as genuine as Big Fish, Todd explores the pitch black soul of a character whose world has betrayed him at every step of the way. Burton’s always had an affinity for these types of characters, but here especially the way he steeps every scene in grey and black, allowing Depp to smile only out of malice and showing the hopelessness of Mrs. Lovett’s attempts to make Todd happy, he really drives home the depression and desperation of Todd. It makes for a surprisingly effective film, and also one that I revisit often.