It brought me back to French Can Can...

Rating: Null/10 (7 July 2001)

Although I did not read each and every comments that were made about this movie, I'm a bit distraught that nobody made the relation with the original plot of La Dame aux camélias (Alexandre Dumas Fils = La Bohème).

Also, it is evident that Luhrmann saw the 1959 French Can Can, a beautiful if naive movie about... Le Moulin Rouge. It was in this movie that I heard for the first time La Complainte de la butte, originally written for the film by Jean Renoir himself, and sung by Rufus Wainwright in Moulin Rouge (although you don't really hear it in the movie, it is on the soundtrack).
I fell in love with that song when I was 10. It is one of the most beautiful love song I have ever heard. I use to sing it to my baby daughter to put her to sleep and now that she is five, she is singing it herself, and love it as well.
I realize this is not much of a appreciation of the film (I must say I loved it but I would have loved it more if the Duke had been played by Alan Rickman)but I think it is worth mentioning that Luhrmann knows is subject well enough to pay an homage to the master and to one of my most cherished musical memory. For that, I thank him from the bottom of my heart.