Horror-opera about the demon barber from London arrives to Kyiv
Director Tim Burton serves his fans another tasty dish – a tale about serial-killing barber Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp), who slits the throats of his customers and then, with the help of bake-shop owner Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), grinds up the corpses and serves them as meat pies to a salivating if unsuspecting public. But “Sweeney Todd,” subtitled “The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” and set in nineteenth-century London is not just a gore movie with Burton-style grim cartoon settings – it’s also a musical. And doing the lion’s share of singing is Depp, who has never sung a note onscreen. But he was easily persuaded by his old friend Burton to take on a landmark musical by legend Stephen Sondheim that leaves trained opera stars feeling daunted.
Sweeney Todd is a thriller from start to finish: scary, monstrously funny and melodically thrilling. Burton knew that Sweeney Todd has been sacred in theater circles since its Broadway debut in 1979. Nevertheless, he dared to delete songs, abridge characters and cut an hour out of the three-hour long show to keep the tale fixed on Sweeney’s need for revenge.
The story evolves around London barber Benjamin Barker, whose happy life (not to mention his beautiful wife and baby daughter) is cruelly snatched away from him by the vicious Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman). The wife’s beauty attracted this sexual predator protected by the law in the person of Beadle Bamford (Timothy Spall). On a forged charge, the barber is sent to an Australian prison and the judge takes full advantage of Mrs. Barker.
Fifteen years later Benjamin, now calling himself Sweeney Todd, arrives back in London, and is understandably angry about a lot of things. Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham-Carter), the owner of a shop selling “the worst pies in London,” tells him that his wife went mad and took her own life, and that the judge now plans to marry Johanna (Jayne Wisener), Sweeney’s daughter. Sweeney sets about rebuilding his old business, with a view to avenging all his past wrongs.
“Sweeney Todd” is the second film in Tim Burton’s career after “Ed Wood,” made with music not composed by Danny Elfman, Burton’s favorite. By now “Sweeney Todd” has been hailed as a masterpiece by critics around the world. The film received two Golden Globe awards – one for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical (Johnny Depp), and one for Best Picture, Comedy or Musical. The film was also nominated for three Academy Awards and won for Best Achievement in Art Direction.
Kyiv (19 Chervonoarmiyska, 234-7381)
From April 3.
In English with Ukrainian subtitles.
