A screaming mess of an attempt to make a super modern musical/love story

Rating: 2/10 (11 September 2006)

I did not like Moulin Rouge the first time I saw it and I realized why when I visited the exhibit in the Washington, DC National Gallery "Toulouse - Lautrec and Monmartre" last April and saw close to 200 paintings, posters, etchings, prints, and other works of one of the most original, ironic, and insightful painters ever.
No one was able to capture Monmartre the way Toulouse-Lautrec did - its raucous spirit, unbridled energy, tawdry behavior, garish colors, and provocative celebrities. Lautrec's works are filled with the unique atmosphere of daring, racy Monmartre of the late 1890s. To make a film about Moulin Rouge which is inseparable from Monmarte and to present a stupid caricature, the ridiculous and pathetic marionette that (for some unknown to me reasons) was called Henry de Toulouse-Lautrec and to take away the mood, the atmosphere and substitute them with loud, senseless mess - was unforgivable. I bought a CD in the Museum shop with the original Moulin Rouge songs and music that were written during the "Belle Époque". Even though some of them sound a little funny and naive today, they are natural, they are not the fakes that were used in the movie and were supposed to represent the sound of Monmartre of the years long gone.
Well, the DVD was on the shelf in the library where I volunteer every Saturday and I decided to give the movie the second chance. I should not have done it. I watched about 20 minutes, and that was all I could take. I remember from the first time that "Roxanne" was filmed well and I found and watched the scene again. I like the song and the dancing but I hated how they had to squeeze Kidman in there. The big part of me not accepting the movie is that I don't see Kidman's talent in this particular movie, I don't like her acting, and she irritated me most of the time. There are more things about "Moulin Rouge" that I don't like. I hate the story; I hate the stupid dialogs about "summer of love". Cancan is a very sexy dance and well performed it would take your breath away. Whatever they called cancan in the movie was not unlike the group of cows performed on the scene.
What a screaming mess of an attempt to make a super modern musical/love story/whatever. This was my second time, and that's it.
Time Magazine said, "You've never seen anything like it!" - Indeed.