‘Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’, the movie version of a hit play by Stephen Sondheim, is going to hit the screens soon and I can’t help but wonder whether Shekhar will jump for joy. It has everything to whet his cinematic appetite: Tim Burton + Johnny Depp + Musical + Victorian Milieu.
I find it interesting for another reason (since I hate musicals) - it seems to be a slasher movie with revenge as its central motif. Blood will be spilt, throats will be slashed and vengeance will be served. Truth be told, I am excited by the promise of such gratuitous violence.
AO Scott gave it a glowing endorsement in the NY Times. The concluding paras of his review:
It may seem strange that I am praising a work of such unremitting savagery. I confess that I’m a little startled myself, but it’s been a long time since a movie gave me nightmares. And the unsettling power of ‘Sweeney Todd’ comes above all from its bracing refusal of any sentimental consolation, from Mr. Burton’s willingness to push the most dreadful implications of Mr. Sondheim’s story to their blackest conclusions.
‘Sweeney Todd’ is a fable about a world from which the possibility of justice has vanished, replaced on one hand by vain and arbitrary power, on the other by a righteous fury that quickly spirals into madness. There may be a suggestion of hopefulness near the end, but you don’t see hope on the screen. What you see is as dark as the grave. What you hear — some of the finest stage music of the past 40 years — is equally infernal, except that you might just as well call it heavenly.
I find it interesting for another reason (since I hate musicals) - it seems to be a slasher movie with revenge as its central motif. Blood will be spilt, throats will be slashed and vengeance will be served. Truth be told, I am excited by the promise of such gratuitous violence.
AO Scott gave it a glowing endorsement in the NY Times. The concluding paras of his review:
It may seem strange that I am praising a work of such unremitting savagery. I confess that I’m a little startled myself, but it’s been a long time since a movie gave me nightmares. And the unsettling power of ‘Sweeney Todd’ comes above all from its bracing refusal of any sentimental consolation, from Mr. Burton’s willingness to push the most dreadful implications of Mr. Sondheim’s story to their blackest conclusions.
‘Sweeney Todd’ is a fable about a world from which the possibility of justice has vanished, replaced on one hand by vain and arbitrary power, on the other by a righteous fury that quickly spirals into madness. There may be a suggestion of hopefulness near the end, but you don’t see hope on the screen. What you see is as dark as the grave. What you hear — some of the finest stage music of the past 40 years — is equally infernal, except that you might just as well call it heavenly.
3 comments:
Ya baby!!!
"Sweeny Todd", Poster looks damn good,
Last film I totally fell in love with was
"Sleepy Hollow",. (Gothic Brutality)
Blood looks thick in Burton's Movies,.
the ignorant should keep mum..
yea, m just speaking to let u know that am still reading ardently all that u r writing- though movies are those tracks onto which i havn't trudged much as yet;
with all these posters and writings, i might surely give a few a try
Kya Yaar Sunil,
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