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Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor make a love story for the ages in Luhrmann's electric Moulin Rouge! |
It’s the turn of the century, and Christian (Ewan McGregor)
arrives in Paris looking for truth, inspiration and above all: love. Arriving
at Montmartre, he and courtesan Satine (Nicole Kidman) fall in love. Satine is
the star at Harold Zidler’s (Jim Broadbent) Moulin Rouge and also the
star of Zidler’s planned stage show. She has been promised to his wealthy
backer the Duke (Richard Roxburgh). With Christian commissioned to write the
script, can he and Satine hide their love from the Duke and make sure the Show
Goes On? Or will tragedy strike?
Fast paced and electric, Moulin Rouge! could inspire
motion sickness, especially in its opening 15 minutes which throw us deep into its
unconventional medley of styles, tones and inspirations. Did that first 15 minutes
lose a lot of people? You can imagine it as the earliest scenes featuring Christian’s
meeting with Toulouse-Lautrec and the other Bohemians are by far its weakest.
If your irritation grows at these shrill scenes (crudely over-acted with an
overbearing Keaton-ish energy), I can well imagine thousands of viewers checked
out in Luhrmann’s music inspired Moulin Rouge can-can musical with its
explosion of rap, Nirvana, Lady Marmalade and insanely quick cutting. It’s a
statement opening – and throws you straight into its heightened reality. A tone
that continues for much of the opening 40 minutes.
Luhrmann leaves nothing in the locker room here. Only a
director of such exuberance, playfulness – but also deep skill and understanding
of high and low culture – could have balanced it as well as he does. Go with it
and you’ll love it. It’s pure operatic entertainment. Luhrmann’s master-stroke
is to shoot a period musical in the style of the high-velocity music-video pop
that excited people in 2001 – finally you get a sense of why the Moulin
Rouge and can-can seemed so exciting and sexy back then. It’s a night-club
of 1999, thrown into 1899.
But what makes the film work after that initial explosion of
energy – and I’ll agree that the first 15 minutes tries too hard to grab your
attention – is that Luhrmann mixes the styles up so effectively. There is
everything here, from Busby Berkeley numbers to heartfelt love ballads to dreamy
duets to a sexual tango to a classic theatrical set-piece, tinged with a spot of
tragedy. Every musical number seems inspired by a different genre and style of
musical theatre. And the use of modern pop music is fun, entertaining and mines
the emotional connection we all feel for the best pop songs.
It’s an MTV pop musical, mixed with Gene Kelly, lashes of
camp, cheeky humour and finally tragedy and suffering. It’s got a million cuts
in it, but Luhrmann successfully makes the film darker, slower and more
intimate as the film progresses. From the electric dynamism of the opening,
this becomes an increasingly personal tragedy revolving around five key
characters. It never loses that sense of showmanship – Zidler’s planned
production is an overblown Bollywood inspired extravaganza that delights in
recreating the joy and brashness of that genre – but the final hour is a more
adult, foreboding movie with plenty of heart.
Moulin Rouge! is all about Luhrmann’s gadfly
brilliance to discover inspiration from a host of sources, pulling it together
into something brilliantly original, from the plot – which is inspired by La
Boheme by way of Orpheus and Eurydice – to brilliant montage songs like the
Elephant Love Song Medley, which takes snippets from nearly every popular love
song you’ve ever heard. Very few films can switch so effortlessly from cheeky,
end-of-the-pier humour to gut-wrenching tragedy. It’s energy effectively and
brilliantly applied, and that comes from the director (who was, of course,
inexplicably not among the films eight Oscar nominations).
Luhrmann also gets the actors to perform with the sort of
energetic, fully-committed exuberance the film needs. The principals go at
every single scene with no hesitations at all – bless them, none have any
concern with appearing silly at all. McGregor reveals a sweetness and
earnestness (as well as very strong singing voice) he hadn’t shown before.
Kidman was an absolute revelation as a woman hiding doubt, insecurity and fear
under an exterior of pure confidence. Broadbent’s comedic brilliance is matched
with his dramatic flair. Roxburgh is hilarious, and also vile, as the selfish Duke.
Luhrmann recognises their strength – after the first 10 minutes every scene features
at least two of these performers.
Things have clearly been cut here and there. Motivations and
even characterisations of some of the other members of the Moulin Rouge troupe change
from scene-to-scene. Sometimes it tries too hard to be inventive. But it works
so often that it hardly matters. And the remixes of the songs for performance
are outstanding. The “Like a Virgin” Busby Berkely number is hilarious, the
“Roxanne Tango” breath-takingly influential. “The Show Must Go On” is powerfully
doom-laden and “Your Song” beautifully romantic. “Come What May” – the only
original number – is an iconic ballad.
There’s not been anything quite like Moulin Rouge! –
and Luhrmann has never managed to match it again since. Electric, dynamic,
exciting, heartfelt, moving and above all extremely joyful, it has some
brilliantly judged performances from its lead actors. There hasn’t been
anything like it since – and I’m pretty sure we won’t see it’s like again.
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