They say that Moulin Rouge was so supposed to bring back the era of the musical. I think this feat was attempted and failed by Madonna with Evita. But hey, it was a good effort on the part of Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann. Staring as the courtesan Satine was Nicole Kidman as an aspiring actress who can pack an audience at the Moulin Rouge and make everyone’s fantasy come true. With the help of fantastic sets, 20^th century popular music, and grand choreographed dance numbers we have some great spectacles, but not enough of a story to bring to life the dead genre of the musical when we have special effects and great explosions in today’s movies.

The story begins with a poet, Christian (Ewan McGregor of Star Wars: Episode I) writing about love. This flashes back to his arrival at the Moulin Rouge. An Argentinean man (Jacek Koman) crashes through his ceiling. This man is a narcoleptic who fell asleep while rehearsing his new play. The midget Toulouse-Lautrec (John Leguizamo of Doctor Dolittle) invites Christian to play the Argentinean’s role. So impressed with his story writing abilities, which are real plays and musicals of the 20^th century, he convinces him to present his ideas to Harold Zidler (Jim Broadbent of Bridget Jones’s Diary) to get financial backing for their play. We see Kidman perform and she returns to her dressing room to wait for a Duke (Richard Roxburgh of Mission Impossible II) and talk about her future. Christian meets Satine instead and makes beautiful music to her as they fall in love. Enter the Duke and she has to pretend to be with him. Then in a circus like stunt the idea of the poet’s play is introduced. The beautiful courtesan is being courted by an evil sheik, but she is in love with another. You know the idea of life imitating drama or the other way around. Well the side story is this story and it gets complicated and then all of it comes crashing down. Thus the poet writes about love, a sad yet wonderful kind of love.

I don’t think there is enough to this story to revive musicals, but it did make for an entertaining little film. I did have a hard time with the concept of Kidman (Practical Magic) looking as good as she did yet dying of TB. She goes from perfect health and signing like a dove to demise in an instant. That is why musicals can’t come back, too much drama and farce to be taken seriously. Well it was an entertaining film and the music was wild so I give Moulin Rouge a seven on the About-Movies.com rating scale.

Last updated: Saturday, October 28, 2006 05:37:38 PM

Click Here to get back into frames.