Clever devices used well, and almost a new cinema.

Rating: Null/10 (16 September 2001)

Luhrmann realises one important thing. That if you want to evoke a
powerful response from an audience you can achieve that not by
pursuing the representation of reality, but by abandoning reality
entirely.
It's a clever device, and used well in Moulin Rouge. As the
audience is led through the opening curtain, it is invited to
abandon the rules and regulations of the real world. Once the
audience is in Luhrmann's world, he can do anything he wants.
As a story, it's good, though not remarkable. But as a film, it is a
celebration of what's best about cinema. The use of colour, scale,
motion, and clever editing, the use of contrast, light and dark,
make for a film that seduces you and sucks you in, and keeps you
watching.
Another clever device is the use of music. Luhrmann knows that if
a character speaks a few words of a famous love song, the scene
and the film will inherit the emotional response engendered by
that song. This magpie approach is true of many of the props and
costumes in the film. He taps into our psyches and into our myths,
and uses them to great effect.
It is very much an internal film. It is set in a closed, dark, shady
world, but one in which the diamonds of people and personalities
shine bright. It's a lovely backdrop for a simple love story, and a
struggle between carigatures of good and evil. It's got a delicate,
innocent comedy that gives the film a pleasant balance.
You can't really fault the casting or the acting, and you come out
with a greater respect for the actors involved. In all, a good film,
and a film with big director visibility, and arguably a genre in its
own right.