Sweeny Todd Review_Paul Ahn
For starters I’ve never liked the musical/film genre, they tend to make me be come distracted from the plot of the films as well as lose the trail of the emotions I had while following the films. That is why the few Bollywood films I’ve watched, like the “The three idiots” which I’ve enjoyed tremendously, I always cringed on the musical like scenes. “Sweeney Todd” is also the musical/film type of media therefore I found the non-singing parts to be a lot more interesting. That being said the background which is the gloomy dark London which I love, and the gritty plot was really enjoyable. During the beginning when the elixir selling Sacha Cohan first appears I realized the old medicine selling scam that happened all over the world (Including Korea during the older times) was also another form of theater. They would sometimes hire small circus and sweet talkers (like the child in Sweeney Todd) in order to congregate a crowd and sell their scam. They have a story, a crowd, and a stage making them a half-baked theater.
As Todd starts his murder streak, each song the characters sing has its own theme but it is all tied to one character Johanna. Anthony’s song is about yearning for Johanna similar to Todd but his song is about love while Todd’s is about anger that he cannot see her and boost to his ideals about how every men deserves to die. I liked the parts where they re-used the basic instrumentals of the same music but just changed the lyrics. Even with the same basic sounds, in different context and with different modifying sounds a lovely love song can become a deadly murder song.
Until the middle of the film I did not find the usual Tim Burton-ish feeling that his works always gives off, but when Todd and Mrs. Lovett first open up their cannibal pie shop, Mrs. Lovett describes her life with Todd. The scenes that spring up like the beach, friendly dinners, and happy marriage you can see the usual design of clothings Tim Burton uses.
For the plot, at the end everyone dies due to their twisted desire. Sweeney due to his desire for vengeance unknowingly murders his wife and kills Ms. Lovett for deceiving him to into doing so. However, his vengeance also gets him killed by the boy who saw Ms. Lovett as his mother. As for Ms. Lovett, her desire and love for Sweeney as mentioned before get her killed as her lie ruins everything Sweeney worked for. While the judge, his lust for beautiful women and his twisted love for Johanna gets him killed. As Sweeney said they deserved to die in someway according to the play.