Saturday, January 26, 2008
Defending the Barber
Well I have not been able to see a movie in awhile but I am going to come to the defense of the last movie I saw, Sweeney Todd. All my my friends and family seem to have liked it but the people at work are trash talking the film and Tim Burtons style. The first comment I heard was Sweeney is an evil character and "how can you sympathize with him, all he does is kill innocent people." First of all his killing is motivated by one of the worst things that can happen to person. He has his family stripped away from him. Second of all this film is a TRAGEDY. He has become so blinded by the evil that has been done to him that he loses sight of the goal which is to get revenge on the judge. If you lost all your family and belived you wife was dead how would you take it? The payoff comes when he realizes he went too far and killed his not yet dead wife. How can you not feel for him as he completely loses his soul? Next I heard that people didnt like the CGI London scape. Did it not create a mood? We are not looking for realistic London here guys. I thought that the use of the "theater like" blood and barber sets made it feel very Broadway like, like maybe a musical?. Also for those of you who didnt like Johnny Depps tenor vocal performance because Sweeney is usual sung by a baritone, I can understand that but I felt the higher wavery non trained voice gave him a slight weakness. It made me feel that underneath his gruff exterior he realized his life was coming undone. I guess it made him feel less like a brooding villian. I just thought I'd talk about this film seeing as it is getting such mixed emotions among those people who I know. I do and will always love Tim Burtons films. His unique style and story telling always offer up such whimsical tales that continue to enchant audience members like myself.
