This story is about love

Rating: 10/10 (10 January 2003)

The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved in return. This movie has passed "Life Is Beautiful" as my favourite movie of all time. It's got everything: romance, jealousy, heartbreak, revenge, sadness, happiness, DANCE, MUSIC! EVERY-THING! My biggest regret is to never have seen it in a theater.
I saw it for the first time almost a year ago, shortly after it came out on DVD. When I saw it, I was totally confounded by the first fifteen minutes of the movie. The camera work, the music, everything went by so fast that I had a hard time figuring out where Baz Luhrmann was trying to go. Then eventually, I caught up with the pace of the movie. I absolutely enjoyed it the first time around, and I watched the extended Tango de Roxanne over and over again.
The use of the music was ingenious and marvelously magical. (I must say, though, that I've been listening to the soundtrack almost every day for the past six months). I am rarely moved when I watch a movie but this one moves me to tears.
I don't like musicals (I did like Grease when I was still a kid, I watched about 10 minutes of Evita before turning it off, and although my kids watch The Sound Of Music on a regular basis, I have yet to see the whole movie). But this movie, with its simplistic storyline and reused music, is an absolute masterpiece.
I think the only way to really, truly appreciate this movie to its fullest is to watch it more than once. Baz Luhrmann has said that he wanted to recreate the confusion, the splendour and the craziness of the Moulin Rouge when it first opened in 1899. Nowadays, audiences are totally blasé. There is a preponderance of sex, violence and a total absence of innocence and bewilderment in our modern society.
Imagine entering into a world that is unlike anything you've ever seen before, something you couldn't imagine in your wildest dreams. That's how people probably felt the first time they went to the Moulin Rouge. In order to understand it and appreciate it, they needed to go back again and again. Luhrmann has succeeded in generating the same feeling with today's apathetic audiences. From the music, to the dialog, to the story itself, there are constantly two things going on at the same time. It is nervewracking and confusing but highly effective.
I believe this is one of those movies that will stand the test of time. After all, it's a movie about truth, beauty, freedom, and above all things, love!