Translated material
Like the hands of a barber
"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" on Moscow screens
Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp), a Londoner who had the imprudence to be the happy husband of his beautiful wife, through the intrigues of Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman), ended up behind bars on trumped-up charges and spent many years in Australian dungeons. Years later, Barker returned to the capital of Foggy Albion under the name of Sweeney Todd, opened a barber shop and began to wait for the judge to fall under his razor, who by that time had already driven Barker’s wife from this world and was stretching his dirty paws to Barker-Todd’s daughter. Until then, Sweeney trains in stabbing operations on other visitors to the hair salon, especially since its production can rightfully be considered waste-free: the unlucky clients who went to heaven are disposed of by Miss Lovett (Hedlena Bonham Carter), the owner of a nearby diner, in which serves "the worst meat pies in London"...At the same time, everyone on the screen is also singing. “Sweeney Todd” is a musical by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler transferred to the cinema; the performance is not the most popular, but it occupies a worthy place in the series of musical performances. A gloomy story imbued with black humor (and just plain black humor), it would seem that it is perfectly suited to be brought to life on the screen by director Tim Burton. But this is where the main problems begin, because of which a seemingly impeccable film turns into “a vague blur of who knows what” (as it was sung in another song not heard in the film).
The case of Tim Burton is unique in its bleakness, but so illustrative that it will have to be examined in detail. Once one of the most important visionaries of Hollywood, the smartest and most subtle stylist who managed to transfer all his youthful complexes to the screen, a fan of old black-and-white horror films and a small fan of reading books, a director by the grace of God, before the eyes of an astonished public he completely lost the ability to surprise and fascinate. In 1999, he made the last film for which there were, and could not be, any complaints - the gothic fairy tale Sleepy Hollow, a very free fantasy based on the classic short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. And after that... The ponderous and boring "Planet of the Apes" (2001)... Rancid in its virtue, false and forced "Big Fish" (2003)... "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (2005) - not bad, but, in essence, only an adaptation of the famous children's book imitating past ingenuity... "Corpse Bride" (2005) is a sepulchral animated story that cannot be compared with the truly outstanding "The Nightmare Before Christmas"... Literally eyes, once one of the most promising and endlessly promising American directors has turned into a craftsman making spectacular, but completely unsatisfying Christmas tree decorations, the place of which is on a crumbling Christmas tree, which still cannot be taken out of the apartment even at the height of the May Day holidays. Unfortunately, Sweeney Todd was not a breakthrough and leads to the conclusion that Burton's crisis continues, and the light at the end of the tunnel of the cave of horrors in the provincial Luna Park has not dawned. It would seem that there is nothing else to dream about: an eternal child with a shock of tangled hair on his smart head took on a plot that is one hundred percent suitable for his nature - a musical about a murderous hairdresser who carries out his revenge without interrupting his main job. Starring Johnny Depp, an ageless faun with the eyes of a medieval gargoyle, Beethovenian hair and an unhealthy sparkle in his eyes, as frank as the steel of a blade. Victorian England, lush and dirty at the same time. Not the worst music. But at the same time, absolutely nothing happens in my head (let’s keep quiet about my heart) - I want the film, in which everything is clear from the very first frame, to end as quickly as possible. And one, another... the third aria in a row seems unnecessary and uninteresting. It seems that the ordinary process of ridding another gentleman of grown stubble (sort of like in Andy Warhol’s film “Shave”) can be much more interesting than all this strained decadence.