This week Expatica - in collaboration with Picturenose - brings you Sweeney Todd, La jeune fille et les loups, The Kite Runner, Peur(s) du noir and Sleuth.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Here's Johnny!
Mr Depp seems singularly incapable of picking a bad role – fresh from his triumphant conclusion to the Pirates of The Caribbean trilogy, At World's End (2007), he reunites with Tim Burton for the first time since Charlie and The Chocolate Factory (2005). Burton's output has been somewhat underwhelming of late – although Charlie... wasn't half bad, it was preceded by the disappointing Corpse Bride (2005), Big Fish (2003) and Planet of the Apes (2001).

Fear not – he's back to his blackly humorous best, in this adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim/Hugh Wheeler Broadway smash musical. In the dark heart of Victorian England, Benjamin Barker (Depp) lives a simple, happy life as a barber with his wife Lucy (Laura Michelle Kelly) and their baby daughter Johanna, before the evil Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) has Barker deported to Australia on a trumped-up charge, rapes Lucy, then takes the older daughter (Jayne Wisener) as his ward.

Barker returns years later as none other than Sweeney Todd, moves above the pie shop of Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), who has hidden his razors under a floorboard. He's profoundly happy to have them back - bloody happy, you might say...
    
This is a beautifully crafted, ink-black and brooding adaptation – musicals are not to everyone's taste (such as my Picturenose partner's, for example, but what would he know?) but the poignancy, power, and creativeness of Stephen Sondheim's lyrics have been done real justice by Burton's decision to allow his actors/singers to be naturalistic, recognizable human beings. The on-stage melodrama is toned down to offer a quiet, chilling and at times very moving account of Todd's despair, brilliantly wrought by Depp, with Helen Bonham Carter's Mrs. Lovett providing a cold, utterly conniving counterpart.

Burton also manages to provide full Grand Guignol (only hinted at in the stage version), with the juxtaposition between naturalistic singing and acting only enhancing the effect of Todd's revenge – blood has rarely gushed so beautifully.

116 mins.

La jeune fille et les loups (The Maiden and The Wolves)

Set at the end of World War I, Malabar Princess (2004) director Gilles Legrand's film stars Laetitia Casta as Angèle, a 20 year-old who has set herself the goal of becoming the first woman veterinarian, in a bewitching, lushly-made drama. Casta is determinedly feisty as the central character, whose fate becomes entangled with that of the last wild wolf pack on Mont Blanc - saving the wolves becomes Angele's life.

French language. 110 mins.


The Kite Runner

You'll be hearing a lot more from myself and Picturenose.com this year concerning young director Marc Forster – he's at the helm of the next James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, which is due for release across Europe in early November and which is almost enough to make you wish that 2008 passes even more quickly than it will anyway.

Anyway, back to the matter in hand – Forster has gained something of a reputation for himself , with work such as Stranger Than Fiction (2006), Stay (2005), Finding Neverland (2004) and Monster's Ball (2001), and here has crafted a moving tale with writer David Benioff from Khaled Hosseini's novel of a mercy mission by Amir (Khalid Abdalla), who returns to his homeland in Afghanistan after spending years in California, to answer a call for help from an old friend.

Sobering, without resort to sentimentality.

122 mins.

Peur(s) du noir (Fear(s) of the Dark)

Directors Blutch, Marie Caillou and writer Charles Burns serve up an intriguing (and creepy) black-and-white animated omnibus concerning our most primordial fear, which was shown at Sundance Film Festival 2008. Featuring the vocal talents of, among others, Guillaume Depardieu, Nicole Garcia and Aure Atika, the segments represent a subtle evocation, in differing artistic styles, of how private fears can so easily become part of personal reality – and whether the same can be overcome.

French language. 82 mins

Sleuth

Well, this must have seemed like a really good idea at the time – get Kenneth Branagh behind the camera to direct Sir Michael Caine and Jude Law in a remake of Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1972 classic, which was adapted from the original Anthony Shaffer play. The italicized emphasis is intentional, because Harold Pinter has taken it upon himself, with Schaffer presumably whirring in his grave, to cut the original's 138 minutes to a mere 87 and with it, to this writer's mind, the heart and soul of one of my favourite films, rendering this as being of curiosity value only.

Out of respect for those who may not have seen the first version (widely available in all formats, film fans), and because the play's essential core lies in the fine art of 'playing the game', I'll only reveal that the story involves intricate interplay between ageing writer Andrew Wyke (Caine, played by Sir Laurence Olivier in the original) and struggling actor Milo Tindle (Law, taking on what was previously Caine's role) who has stolen his wife's heart. They couldn't even get Alec Cawthorne to reprise his wonderful role as Inspector Doppler...

87 mins.
James Drew

'Expatica's weekly cinema-review section is brought to you in collaboration with Picturenose.com'  

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(expatica 2008)