Moulin Rouge is the third in director Baz Luhrmann's
'velvet curtain' series, the first two being Strictly Ballroom and Romeo and
Juliet. It was four years in the making (at Sydney's fantastic Fox Studios), although in fact some
of the sets had to be recreated in miniature later on, as the production was
booted out of Fox to make space for Star Wars part II Attack of the 50 ft
Tomatoes or whatever it's called. Nothing quite like Moulin Rouge has ever been
attempted before, and whether you love it or loath it (opinion does seem to be
rather polar on the issue), you can't deny Luhrmann's genius and ambition.
Moulin Rouge tells the story of a doomed romance between Christian, an English
writer obsessed with love, and the beautiful courtisan Satine, who is rather
more cynical and lives inside an elephant at the Moulin Rouge nightclub in late
nineteenth century Paris. All this is fairly standard fare, if a little lacking
in plot, but Luhrmann spices it up by adding decidedly twentieth century music,
and by using a quite insane number of electric lights. The Moulin Rouge did
exist, but it had gas lights only, and in fact even 100 years later the movie
crew had trouble generating enough power to fulfill Luhrmann's vision. The
result is a perfect fantasy with the cast and even the moon breaking into song,
all above a perfect model of Paris. The acting all round is fantastic,
particularly Nicole Kidman, who unfortunately damaged her knee and cracked a
rib during filming. Both Nicole and Ewan McGregor have fine singing voices, and
the versatile Jim Broadbent (Brazil, Little Voice, Bridget Jone's Diary) is
brilliant as always as the showman Zidler.
Moulin Rouge is a very visual movie and is at times shot in a very frenetic
'MTV' style which can almost overwhelm the senses, particularly early on in the
movie when Christian first visits the nightclub. It really demands to be seen
on the big screen, where you can really appreciate the wonderful colours, dance
numbers and fantasy sequences that frankly have to be seen to be believed.
The first time I saw Moulin Rouge was at a limited run at the Ziegfeld in
Manhattan. The movie had people cheering and applauding, and others leaving the
theatre. In my view any movie that can produce these extremes of emotion must
be truly extraordinary. And at my home cinema in Ipswich, people usually bolt
for the exit the moment a movie finishes, before the credits. But for Moulin
Rouge, they sat for three minutes completely mesmorised. In any case the
credits are a work of art in themselves.
In fact the first time I saw Moulin Rouge I thought that while it contained
undeniably fantastic moments, it was a little overlong and had a very thin
plot. On repeated viewings I have revised this opinion, so much so that Moulin
Rouge is now my favourite movie of 2001.
127 minutes, Panavision 2.35 : 1
The Players:
Ewan Mcgregor as Christian
Nicole Kidman as Satine
Jim Broadbent as Zidler
Richard Roxburgh as the Duke of Monroth
John Leguizamo as Toulouse-Loutrec
written by Ed in October 2001