Answers to the movie quiz are out... look in my detailed profile... JB
Answers to the movie quiz are out... look in my detailed profile... JB
Member since:21.01.2001
Reviews:33
Members who trust:13
Here you go everyone: maverick boy Baz Luhrmann has completed his labour of love. The film that was many years in the making has finally come to fruition, and I’m glad to say that it is worth the time and effort. Moulin Rouge is unlike anything you’ll have ever seen previously in mainstream cinema: a remarkable eclectic pastiche of visual, verbal and musical anachronisms that somehow manages to keep itself together.
The main body of the film is told in flashback: Ewan McGregor, a struggling English writer in the fin-de-siecle hubbub of the 19th century, moves to find fortune in the Montmartre Quartier of Paris, to live near Jim Broadbent’s Moulin Rouge nightclub. Fresh-faced, innocent, romantic and slightly foolish, he falls for the elegant tart-with-a-heart Nicole Kidman, who we learn is to die of tuberculosis by the film’s end. It’s unlikely that you are unaware of the (pedestrian) plot by now, as a great deal of fuss has already been made about the film.
In choosing two very established genres in the conventional tragic love story and the musical, Luhrmann is deliberately limiting himself. He knows that audiences, on the whole, would
reject a film that deviated too sharply from the norm, that broke too many rules at once. So he sets us on safe ground by giving us a story and a format that we know and love. Using this as his base, Luhrmann can set about breaking down other barriers without losing his audience’s favour.
Breaking down barriers is without doubt what Luhrmann has set out to achieve, and his success goes as far as it can, given the limitations I have mentioned. There can be no denying that in the fields of editing and cinematography, Moulin Rouge is highly progressive. Luhrmann is more interested in artifice rather than naturalism, and the film is as far from the naturalistic as it is safe to go without losing its humanity and charm.
Luhrmann relies heavily on the sympathy of his audience. One of last year’s most imaginative and beautiful films, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon insisted on the audience’s complicity from the outset. To enjoy the film fully, one had to accept that it was a mythical, fairy-tale love story, set out of time, and that its principle lead characters could float gracefully through the air. In a similar fashion, Moulin Rouge makes no pretence at being anything other than a simple love story laced with a great deal of artifice. It is pure spectacle, and challenges the viewer to leave expectation, convention and prejudice behind in favour of an open mind.
In the big dance numbers (and believe me, there are a few), short, sharp cuts between wide-angle and close-up, between general action and detail shots show that Luhrmann owes a great deal to Eisenstein; but he uses these techniques to the end that the viewer is overcome. Eisenstein, in Potemkin, used cuts to aid the audience in suspension of belief; Luhrmann deliberately tests his viewer’s concentration. The result is a sumptous confusion of many images filled with vibrant, opulent colour, and it does at times become hard work to follow the action. If you can keep your head while all on screen are losing theirs though, the overall effect is mind-blowing. Big Baz has managed to merge the two genres of stage musical and cinema to create an audio-visual assault.
The film looks so good as well. Costumes and set design will tempt the Academy’s judges without doubt. The stylised, mythical Paris is both ugly and beautiful, and little fairy-tale touches such as the man in the moon singing in the style of a G & S principal are truly hilarious. The cameo of Kylie Minogue as the imaginary Absinthe fairy is inspired.
The much talked-about score is fascinating. Popular songs from the last forty years or so rub shoulders with as many musical genres as you care to notice. It could so easily have fallen flat and sounded cliched; but it is the sheer audacity of the project coupled with its wry smile and tongue-in-cheek attitude that carry the score beyond the gimmicky and render it entertaining and absorbing. The highlights of this imaginative project must surely include Jim Broadbent’s hilarious rendition of Like A Virgin, and a heart-wrenching, harsh, bitter bohemian tango version of The Police’s Roxanne. The soundtrack won’t be to everyone’s taste, but then again, nor will the film.
It is surely the mark of an interesting and diverting piece of art that it should divide the critics, and Moulin Rouge has been no exception. Both in the US and over here, critics have both hailed it as a masterpiece (which it is not) and self-indulgent, artless tedium (harsh, but it can be argued). There has been very little indifference, but then when you set out to break down barriers within your art form, you leave your breast bared to both extremes of the critics. If you get progressive art right, you will upset the conservative critic, and you will be hailed as the "next big thing" by the cutting-edge commentator.
In this film, extraordinary in so many ways, its makers have gone beyond what they set out to achieve. It does have flaws, it has self-imposed limits, an anticlimactic ending, and you do walk out feeling a little hung over. The opulence and richness of the film will be too much for some, where others may get very upset at the reworking of modern songs out of context. But Luhrmann has slapped Hollywood in the face with this extravaganza of light, sound and colour, and it may well be the wake-up call the US industry badly needs. Stay away if you don't like your films to be in-your-face; but go and see it with an open mind, and you might be surprised how much you like it, despite yourself.
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Production Year: 1999 - Music / Performing Arts - Original Language: English - Classification: Exempt - Starring: Donny Osmond, Joan Collins, Richard Attenborough
'As original as Being John Malkovich.' Hmmm I'd have to disagree, it's a pretty standard musical that steals pop songs from the past 30 years. Still, you make a good argument and you have a great style.
Howiemon 28.09.2001 17:33
Okay James, I've read enough - welcome to the Howie C.O.T (the bill's in the post...)
Passion - filled poet falls for a breathtaking courtesan in this exotic musical love story ... more
from the unique and spellbinding imagination of visionary director Baz Luhrmann. Stunning performances from stars Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor fuel this movin...
Watching Baz Luhrmann's award-winningMoulin Rougeis a lot like falling in love. It is ... more
total immersion cinema and while you're experiencing it ("watching" is too passive a word) you can't imagine that cinema could be for anything else. In the harsh, obj...
Postage & Packaging: free Super Saver Delivery Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
Watching Baz Luhrmann's award-winningMoulin Rougeis a lot like falling in love. It is ... more
total immersion cinema and while you're experiencing it ("watching" is too passive a word) you can't imagine that cinema could be for anything else. In the harsh, obj...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
![Moulin Rouge! [Special Edition] (2001)-CD](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/97375302.jpg "Moulin Rouge! [Special Edition] (2001)-CD")
![Moulin Rouge -- Two-Disc Set [DVD] [2001]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/78237871.jpg "Moulin Rouge -- Two-Disc Set [DVD] [2001]")
Sep 14th, 2001
(Jun 26th, 2002)
very helpful by (100%):
