I must be missing something here!

Rating: 4/10 (12 June 2006)

Back in 2001 when 'Moulin Rouge' was released, the reviews did not tempt me to see it and subsequently I forgot about it. I recently bought a copy of the DVD on impulse; assuming that it must be a re-make of John Huston's very fine 1952 film of the same name which was primarily a biography of the artist Toulouse-Lautrec. On playing it I found Baz Luhrmann's modernistic musical, which played like an extended music video rather than a coherent film. It had little appeal to me, and my first reaction was to rate it for IMDb at 1 star. One look at the ratings chart showed that this would be an extreme and unreasonable reaction to my disappointment (which was after all my own fault). Most ratings charts show a good approximation to a Gaussian distribution about whatever peak the film is judged to deserve, but here there is the perfect bi-polar distribution showing separate peaks at 1 star and 10 stars - clearly this is a film viewers either love or hate. Comments from database users who rated it at one star mostly felt, like I had, that it had nothing in common with what they expected from a good feature film and they therefore had nothing good to say about it; but those who rated it at ten were about seven times as numerous, and enthusiastically accepted what Luhrmann provided - however unexpected - as providing stimulating and rewarding viewing. With such an unconventional format, Luhrmann himself is probably more than happy to find seven viewers in tune with his presentation for every one who rejected it, and I had to acknowledge that my reaction perhaps resulted more from my limited tastes than from the film itself. User comments are presumably intended to concentrate on the qualities of the work concerned as assessed by the writer, and should as far as possible filter out idiosyncrasies of taste even when this is not easy to do. Generally when rating a film I like to consider three things - is it well constructed?, has it been created as the producer & director envisaged? and does it leave the viewer with something to think about when leaving the cinema? (The latter of course is not an essential as many films are only designed to give a weary viewer 90 minutes of complete relaxation - but I would never feel that such films should be rated higher than eight ) Re-attempting a fair evaluation on this basis, I still found myself unable to award Moulin Rouge more than a very generous four stars.
The Moulin Rouge is now an almost legendary institution. Any film named after it has to show why it has had such an ongoing appeal for so many years. One wit said that visiting it is something every young man wants to do, unfortunately he often can't until he is too old to still enjoy it. It is this aspect of a sensuously seductive but often inaccessible haven for young men that should first be brought out in any film. The smoky atmosphere in which Toulouse-Lautrec spent night after night sketching a variety of entertainers who could just be seen through the haze was never brought out as it should have been (and was in John Huston's 1952 film). Instead we have clear sharp images swirling and blending in mostly brilliant lighting, as in a kaleidoscope. The incredibly rapid sequencing of visually incompatible images was extremely tiring to watch and for me contributed nothing to the story. The modern pop music continually jarred with the scenario of a building that is so closely associated with the elegance of the 1890's. The continual blending of not only different songs but totally different styles of music left me tired and breathless. The story of entertainers who are manipulated, in a way which often destroys their personal lives, by the impresarios and backers who are anxious to wring another few cents out of the production, is a very old and hackneyed one, but it could have still worked if the characters had been much more rounded and the audience had been able to feel more closely involved with them. This was quite impossible here.
When writing a paragraph such as that above I normally feel I have reviewed the film in a way that should be helpful to at least some other movie-goers, but in this case I am left wondering whether I have only reviewed myself as a movie fan. Even in a situation where I cannot enjoy a particular film I can normally understand why other viewers with different tastes may do so. Here we have a situation where I can appreciate the elegance with which Moulin Rouge has been created, the story it tells, and the brilliance of individual sequences, but the way in which these sequences have been combined, and the totally inappropriateness of the sound track for the mood of the film, make it incomprehensible to me that the film could be given more than a low to mid-range rating by any viewer. Perhaps I have reached a point where I can no longer communicate effectively with a significant proportion of today's movie fans.
My advice to readers is that those who can enjoy watching music videos continuously for an hour or more might love this film, anyone else should consider staying away. But, either way, do not watch this film to experience the magnetic attraction that the Moulin Rouge exerted in the Paris entertainment district for such a long period of time. Instead try to find a copy of the 1952 film of the same name.