Flak Magazine: Review of Moulin Rouge, 6-6-01

That these words could so perfectly describe the same movie is what makes Moulin Rouge, at the very least, unforgettable. The movie tells the story of Christian (Ewan McGregor), a writer, and Satine (Nicole Kidman), a courtesan and nightclub star in turn-of-the-century Paris.

Christian and Satine meet at the Moulin Rouge in a farcical case of mistaken identity (she thinks he's a client) and quickly fall in love. They begin working on a musical called "Spectacular Spectacular," envisioned by Toulouse-Lautrec (the always grating John Leguizamo), written by Christian and starring Satine.

Alas, their love is doomed, for not only is Satine contractually bound to be given to the Duke (Richard Roxburgh), who is financing the club, but she is also unknowingly dying of consumption.

But Christian and Satine fall in love anyway, and incorporate their tragic story into the musical right under the Duke's nose. But when the Duke discovers their affair, he makes it known that Satine must end it or he will have Christian killed.

Satine must decide between her career as an actress and the man she loves. And she must realize the truth in Christian's words (by way of David Bowie, by way of Nat King Cole, by way of songwriter Eden Ahbez): "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return."

What, then, makes the movie awful? The story is predictable, the hackneyed theme is drilled into our heads, the last half hour is torturously draggy, the love story isn't believable, the conflict is easily fixable and the ultimate tragedy fails to wring even the tiniest tear from our eyes.

What, then, makes the movie brilliant?

Australian director Baz Luhrmann is best known for his last film, William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, which was a better film than this one, but also suffered from a style/substance imbalance. In fact, that particular film fault could be called Luhrmann's trademark, but hopefully won't be his legacy.

If you've seen the commercials, you already know that the film is an aesthetic marvel, saturated with color and light and visual decadence. It really is stunning.

But the real genius lies in the director's vision, the sheer originality of it all. Unlike Titanic, another big production that was story-shallow, Moulin Rouge takes huge risks that go way beyond studio budgets.

Here is a film set in 1900, but which features songs, dozens of them, from the '70s through the '90s. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was my personal favorite, along with "Roxanne" and "Like a Virgin." Most songs are performed medley-style, most extravagantly in the musical number in which Satine and Christian fall in love on the roof of Satine's (literally) elephantine chamber. This duet breathlessly, effortlessly jumps along from "Your Song" to "Pride (In the Name of Love)" to "I Will Always Love You," with at least half a dozen others in between, garnering gasps of recognition and heavy applause from the theater audience. The movie's few original songs fit beside these historical selections so well that they all seemed like pop standards to me. Several musical numbers also feature original lyrics set to familiar tunes.

Some of the songs don't work, but the ones that do forge a bond between filmmaker and audience. We know where these songs come from, but the characters, in their innocence, discover them for the first time.

When was the last time you saw a movie about legendary, mythic, tragic love that was set in our time? And I mean besides Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet. Such a movie just wouldn't be believable in a culture where neuroscience, psychology and sociology have revealed romantic love to be the emperor with no clothes.

Luhrmann taps into this vestigial longing for legendary love by giving us love stories with a contemporary twist. So this one doesn't quite make the emotional connection it needs to be a great film — it doesn't matter. What matters is that Lurhmann is moving the medium forward, and he can be forgiven for skipping a few steps, because he's giving us something we've wanted for a long time.

— Lindsay Robertson (lindsay@lindsayism.com)