Transcendently beautiful. A contribution to cinema.

Rating: 10/10 (2 June 2001)

*Moulin Rouge* is unlike any movie you've ever seen, even though it's just like every movie you've ever seen. It is the classic tale of boy loves girl, girl loves boy, one-dimensional villain gets in the way, the lovers spout cliches, and then either they live happily ever after, one of them dies, or they both die. Somehow, though, it transcends all these cliches and becomes something magnificent.
A beautiful and often hilarious movie, it will probably be criticized as being "style over substance." Hogwash. *Moulin Rouge* is a ride. Not a Tunnel of Love, but more like a Wind Tunnel of Love. A radio DJ said of the movie, "It's like you stuck No-Doze in every orifice of your body and drank a Mt. Dew." For much of the first half, this is largely true. It almost feels like you're watching a music video, with frenetic action accelerated by dozens of frenzied cuts. Luhrmann recalls the slapstick comedy of yore, complete with exaggerated pratfalls and goofy sound effects. He immerses you in this world. I turned to my friend and said, "This is the craziest ****ing movie I've seen in a long time." The camera...oh, the camera. It zooms in and out, and flies around the elaborate set. The film is a directorial field day for Luhrmann. He creates a fairytale world, complete with a drug-induced Green Fairy voiced by Ozzy Osbourne.
Like *A Knight's Tale*, it uses anachronistic music. Although I haven't seen *A Knight's Tale*, I believe it is far more effective here. In the Moulin Rouge, music and songs from the 20th century become integrated into the world of 1900 Paris. The amazing thing is, it fits. The patrons of the cabaret chant, "Here we are now, entertain us, we feel stupid and contagious." Luhrmann uses the music as if it were actually in existence at that time, and by doing so, he shows the universality of it. Music is one of those universal languages, and the most universal form of all is the love song. Whether it is 1900 Paris, 1987 Chicago, or 1473 Spain, love is love. The words Madonna, Sting, Elton John, and countless others used to portray love would have been just as appropriate back then, but they never had a chance to hear them. In one brilliant sequence, Christian (Ewan MacGregor) and Satine (Nicole Kidman) sing a dialogue about love, fluidly jumping from love song to love song, lyric to lyric. They don't sing these songs as songs; they sing them like they *mean* them. It is like a very trippy musical.
The fact that Luhrmann pulls together a great deal of love songs is the key to appreciating the movie, because the love between Christian and Satine is idealized. It simply comes into existence and is there in its purest form between them, without logic, without sense. Over and over again, we are reminded that above all, this story is about love. And it really is *about* love. It is love in cinematic form. It is a visual and aural representation of what love is, what it means, and how important it is to human beings.
The movie would not be able to get this across if Ewan MacGregor and Nicole Kidman (looking more beautiful than ever) did not give incredible performances. You can see it in their eyes. You feel their pain. You feel their happiness. The supporting cast supports, as well it should. Jim Broadbent (Gilbert in *Topsy Turvy*) plays the owner of the Moulin Rouge, Harold Zidler. John Leguizamo is real-life midget artist Toulouse-Lautrec, a character I believe is akin to Shakespeare's Fool. And all of the cast can sing unexpectedly well, from a hilariously lyricized can-can to a hilarious "Like a Virgin," from beautiful love songs to a disturbingly appropriate "Roxanne."
The music is wonderful, from the orchestral score to the electronica. I advise you to stay and watch the closing credits, not only because you get to hear more music but also because it's not your typical black screen/white letters crawl, and it gives some predictable but appreciated closure at the end.
All in all, *Moulin Rouge* grabs you and hits you with the sheer power of itself. When the movie ended, the audience was completely silent. I couldn't really speak. I felt like I felt at the end of *Requiem for a Dream*, except less like I was about to die and more like I had just been handed a transcendent feeling to simply experience, enjoy, and learn from. It is the best new movie I've seen since *Memento*, and as this looks like a slow year for great movies, look for it come Oscar time. Go see it. Now.