Theatrics: Plus and Minus

Rating: 1/10 (10 June 2001)

Moulin Rouge is nothing if not theatrical. Director Baz Luhrmann has a distinct vision that one would recognize even if his name weren't in the credits; his pursuit of all things artificial is evident. But here, unlike Strictly Ballroom and William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, his dogged pursuit of a kind of Zen-like cleverness fails. Moulin Rouge isn't a bad movie, exactly. Artifice and over-the-top hysteria have their place, and can make for a quite entertaining, sometimes thrilling, experience. But if you are aiming for the stratosphere with your artistic vision, by all means don't let it ever touch the ground. When Moulin Rouge is just being theatrically silly for its own sake, it soars; but Luhrmann is using every false device ever invented in the service of a story that was probably hoary in 1899, when this film takes place. His theatricality not only overwhelms the emaciated plot, but it doubly points out--again and again--just how hackneyed the storyline is. These are archetypes, not characters; these are plot devices, not drama. I wanted to like this movie, I really did; at times it was so much clever fun (the "Roxanne" tango number, for instance) that I was transported. But its weaknesses can't help but seep in and pretty soon Moulin Rouge is nothing but a remote, chilly experience. When Luhrmann sets all his machines in motion toward the end, one is simply repelled by his lunatic manipulations. How can one feel any emotion (and, boy, is it laid on thick like gravy) for (non)characters for whom the movie's theatrics have made empathetic involvement impossible? As my friend and I were riding in the parking garage elevator after the movie trying to sort out our feelings for the movie, two women got on having the exact same conversation. "Oh, good" I said, honestly relieved, "it wasn't just me." We all stepped out of the elevator and stood and talked for several minutes trying to sort it all out. That is certainly a sign of a director's accomplishing something, but it doesn't necessarily mean the accomplishment was good.