A dark parable of light

Rating: 10/10 (30 March 2008)

Nothing to compare with the French version seen at the cinema some years ago. This film in its original version is entirely or nearly entirely sung and the music is probably the best part of the film.
First Tim Burton recreates in color the bleak black and white vision we can have of London in Dickens among others. Oliver Twist is there in front of us all over again, and his world of coal, smoke and dirt. The only real color he uses is red, the color of blood and nothing else. That is already a piece of art and a masterpiece at that.
Second the actors are so great in their roles and characters that we do believe they are what they pretend to be. Sweeney Todd is really a monster at first look and will not vary from that identification one single iota. He may be justified in his monstrosity or monster-ness, but he is a monster through and through. And he drags everyone around him into that ugliness.
Third there is no hope whatsoever. In the film at least. He abandons the younger ones behind, the youngest has just Killed Sweeney, the two others, the sailor and Todd's daughter are just abandoned alone and frightened. You can also imagine what the good old English Victorian society is going to do to them when they are discovered or captured in that vast cemetery of corpses and cadavers.
Fourth the speaking is voluntarily fuzzy, misty, dark, difficult to follow, often too low, and that is done on purpose. The dialogue is not so much important, apart from a few sentences now and then. It is an atmosphere that is created as if everyone was more or whispering or mumbling in order not to be overheard or understood, misunderstood maybe.
But fifth in this atmosphere the most important element is the music and the singing. It is in no way attractive, charming, harmonious or whatever you may expect from music and singing. It is always the same tone, even when the tune is changing, a very minor dirge that stretches out without any kind of harmony or even attractive rhythm. It is a slow tempo for a very flat music and a minimal singing. A dirge I said, maybe even more than that, the complaint of surviving undead living dead ghosts. We are in the deepest most sinister cul-de-sac blind alley you can imagine in full darkness, with no public light, just a smidgeon of moonlight between two heavy clouds.
And Sweeney Todd is so much engulfed in his vengeance that he does not see anything any more. He does not recognize his own wife except when it is too late. He nearly does the same thing with his own daughter, though he is distracted just in time. He even gets rid of his main accomplice probably out of pure blind vanity and addiction, the addiction to his own vengeance and killing. And his unaware child accomplice is getting just like him at the end and the final razor cut sinks deep in our sensitive mind. Nothing to save that Sweeney and his world. Victorian to the very last second and even right into the credits.
If you believe in love, stay away. If you believe in the beauty of man's heart somewhere, at least the hearts of a few people, stay away: there is not one single beautiful heart in this film. But what is Tim Burton trying to do? To scare us witless out of our pants and frocks with what the world really is behind the shiny and sparkling faÃ§ade? Probably.
A pessimistic film to make us feel relieved when we get out of it: after all, the world is not that bleak. But is it or is it not? Dr Jacques COULARDEAU