A Spectacular Spectacular without Spectacular Characters (Spoilers)

Rating: 6/10 (28 April 2002)

Baz Luhrmann has been quoted (or was it one of the producers?) as saying he was trying to make a musical for the future. Well, how can one make even a modern musical when the heroine is dying of consumption (i.e. tuberculosis, same as Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy). I can just see Susan Sontag bringing out a new edition of her essay-book "Illness as Metaphor" just to combat this movie's totally old-fashioned depiction of a woman dying beautifully from consumption (doesn't she *just* glow when she coughs up blood?). Countless stories over the years (at least according to Sontag) have ended with these romanticised, tragic literary deaths (more recently, these deaths are from AIDS or cancer).
Another thing that makes Moulin Rouge! old-fashioned is the fact that the music is (almost?) entirely pre-existing, most from the Eighties (two whole songs by Madonna) and some even older ("Sound of Music" and "My Song," both of which were apparently written by Christian, not Rodgers and Hammerstein and Barry Taupin and Elton John). In fact, in many ways, the movie seems to be a relic of the Eighties--like Ferris Bueller, the villain is a loud obnoxious clown of a person, while the heroes are young and more "honest" (supposedly exemplified by the midget/sitar that "can tell no lies"). In the end, the movie is just a rehash-on-speed of Titanic, all the way down to the frame that indicates who lives and who dies at the very beginning.
6 out of 10.