Oscar Weekend, Day Three, Part One

This Morning: SWEENEY TODD

Reaction: Oh, the blood! the music! the artistry! the delicious Depp and Rickman!

Nutshell: Barber's Wife is raped by evil Judge who sends Barber away to prison on trumped up charges. Wife takes poison. Daughter "adopted" by Judge. Barber returns after 15 years for revenge. Starts killing people with his barber blade. His new pal the Pie Lady uses the bodies for meat. Lots of people dead in the end, including Judge, Wife, Barber, and Pie Lady. Daughter survives.

Analysis: This musical takes gruesome to new levels... a dirge for humanity, an ironic lullaby, a discordant love song. Sondheim plus Burton plus Depp plus Rickman plus Carter. Wow. But not easy to watch. Last night, I left a movie theatre because I couldn't take the gore. Today, although I turned my eyes away a few times, I was glued to my seat. I do appreciate a good tragedy, and in this genre you have to expect a lot of death. Classical tragedies lament human powerlessness, as we cower beneath fate and frailty. This time around, the tragic flaw is more like a tragic curse: that we all deserve to die. Several characters say it outright. The bad guys deserve it, and so do the rest. Which leads me to...

God in it: God's presence in this movie is best illustrated by His absence. I seem to be drawn to movies of chaos this weekend (or Oscar is). I have to say that the premise of this movie is in agreement with scripture. Death is not only inevitable, but deserved. The most interesting and horrific symbol of this occurs when all the fine innocent townfolk eagerly consume Mrs. Lovett's cannibal pies. The message is crystal clear: Humans devour each other. We call it love, but we really feed on each other to keep ourselves alive. And we teach our kids to do the same. It's all over this film. It would be unbearable if the movie didn't squeeze in a little hope through Anthony, the wide-eyed idealistic youth willing to risk it all for the love of Johanna. They are two of three characters to survive. The only other is Toby, who will no doubt continue life as a hungry, angry scoundrel. Characters like Sweeney are so doomed that they kill the ones they love the best. Only Anthony tapped into any heroism, but the story isn't really about him. It's all about Sweeney Todd, a symbol of hopeless, starved, victimized humanity. A dirge for the road we're all on -- save for the hope of a savior.

Final Note: I just checked out the official website (linked above) and it's fascinating. The makers of the film see it as a love story, and indeed that's a level I didn't think about much, being so overwhelmed with the darkness of it all (hard to avoid in a Burton film sometimes). But Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter strike a very moving and sexy counterpoint -- their eyes and voices are infectious and lovely. The love yearns and hopes but is never fulfilled. And, on a most interesting note, I found out that Anthony's last name is Hope.