This senses-punishing riot of music and color continues for some 20 minutes, as Labelle's Lady Marmalade segues into Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit, and so on. It's like a lysergic nightmare version of a Carol Burnett musical-comedy medley. Only the later numbers that are edited and performed sans effects in something of the style of an actual MGM musical have any real impact, such as an all-male version of Like a Virgin and a tango update of Roxanne by The Police. The manager of the Moulin Rouge, Harold Zidler, is played by Jim Broadbent, who recently appeared as Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan in Topsy-Turvy, a far superior homage to theatrical life. Zidler dreams of converting the Moulin Rouge to a legitimate theater, and Satine dreams of being the new Sarah Bernhardt.
Love is a many-splendored thing . . .
At times the film comes across as a zillion-dollar version of Magical Mystery Tour, and, in fact, All You Need Is Love is among the songs quoted. But so is Silly Love Songs, and while this populist approach may be generous it also makes the film seem somewhat insipid. Francis Ford Coppola was vilified in 1982 for his self-indulgent musical romantic fantasy, One from the Heart. At least Coppola was trying something new. Broadway fans may prefer it to the year's other bizarre musical homage, Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark, but I'll take Bjork's unnerving rendition of My Favorite Things over John Leguizamo's performance of The Sound of Music any day.