* This may include spoilers if you have not watched Sweeney Todd, I recommend you do.*
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was released in 2007, but recently released on Netflix. I have wanted to watch Sweeney Todd for years because of the great rep it had with people on Tumblr. Along with the fact that Tim Burton directed it gave it a double good rep. Tim Burton- if you do not know- directed Alice in Wonderland, Corpse Bride, Edward Scissorhands, Dark Shadow, Frankenweenie and much glorious more. He is the man who singlehandedly brings together creepy and musical beauty. An adult Disney movie if you will. He normally works with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter- and sometimes Alan Rickman as the main characters of his movies.
This movie takes place in London, fifteen years after Sweeney Todd (or Benjamin Baker) was arrested. He comes back in order to get revenge on the man that wronged him taking away his wife, daughter and years of his life. He travels back to the home that he once inhabited with his little family to find Mrs. Lovett’s Meat Pie shop. He enters to encounter the lonely Mrs. Lovett. The become a duet that could not be divided.
The movie was made nine years ago and still made do with the filmmaking resources that were available at that time, even the light red tomato paste looks like blood. If this movie was made today with all the state of the art techniques and props, it would be a best seller. I do thing that this movie should be redone in the same way. The movie is timeless, exciting and teaches us a lesson or two about revenge.
The dark musical was not only about revenge but love, loyalty and the “truth” about humanity. We see love everywhere from Lovett’s love for Todd. Todd’s love for his wife, Lucy Baker- and his daughter, Johanna (who was taken away from him when she was just a baby.) Anthony’s love for Johanna. Beanie Bamford- literally- undying love for Judge Turpin and everything she stood for. Tobias willing to die for her love toward Mrs. Lovett.
Loyalty is where their love bonds are formed. Tobias and Lovett even sang a song about how much they would protect each other- "Not While I’m Around". Both Todd and Anthony (the man who helped him get back to London) sang a song to Johanna named "Johanna" about how they will save her from the life that she is in. All though Anthony is the only one who saved Johanna.
Todd gives us the song "No Place Like London" in the beginning of the movie. Before Todd starts singing Anthony is singing about the glamour and beauty of the stormy gray London, but Todd interject with his reality. His reality is : The ugliness of man and how Anthony’s life has been privilege and untainted by the harm that men can do. He also shared what Todd and Lovett do to make a living. Desperate to have the best pies in London- even though she makes a point that she has the worst- she and Todd use the body of the men he kills while giving them a shave to make a pie. In the end, he has no loyalty to Lovett and everything she did for him but for himself. If that does not say anything about the nature of man what does?
