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'Moulin Rouge' dazzles and disappoints
[Photos: 20th Century Fox]
Satine, the Sparkling Diamond, played by Nicole Kidman, makes a dramatic exit after a performance at the Moulin Rouge. Her signature song, Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend, reveals one way time is fractured and bent in Moulin Rouge. |
By STEVE PERSALL
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 31, 2001
As it impudently reaches beyond the limits of genre, the film generates a delirious excitement. But intoxication hints at hangover when the pace begins to flag.
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You might think people would have enough silly love songs by now. One look at Baz Luhrmann's odd neo-musical Moulin Rouge might convince you that isn't so.
Moulin Rouge is that rarest of summertime movies, a bold stretch from genre convention that has no obvious profit motive. Luhrmann is smart enough to know this will be a tough sell, a period piece that isn't anything anyone could expect: certainly flawed, almost fatally at times, but always confident that the next creative gamble will pay off.
The most obvious risk is Luhrmann's selection of music to define time and character. The songs in Moulin Rouge simply shouldn't be here: Broadway and pop music hits from the second half of the 20th century in a story set in 1900 Paris. Yet, there is always a timeless subtext: Love is love is love, no matter what century or who's singing.
The feelings of romance and rebellion that prompted Elton John and Bernie Taupin to compose Your Song or Nirvana to write Smells Like Teen Spirit aren't exclusive to modern culture. Luhrmann gallops with that notion through hyperkinetic editing, hallucinatory settings and lush camera tricks, making Moulin Rouge unlike any film you've ever seen.
Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor play the lovers Satine and Christian in Moulin Rouge.
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That's obvious from the film's bravura opening, with the 20th Century Fox fanfare conducted by a moshing skinhead in a tuxedo. The tune segues into The Sound of Music and, immediately, all bets are off. Luhrmann adores movie musical motifs, but he wants them to change. Going straight to the summit of Maria von Trapp's showstopper is a fascinating way to start his revolution.
For the next 20 minutes, Moulin Rouge is a jaw-dropper. We're whisked into the era with head-spinning economy and flair. Luhrmann begins with a god's-eye view of Paris -- marvelously stylized with miniature models -- then shoves the camera into the streets, down alleys and past decadent residents, at camera speeds that zoom and linger with a bumblebee's attention span.
We enter the apartment of Christian (Ewan McGregor), a writer nearly in tears, typing the events that made him that way. He only manages a few introductory words, but Luhrmann's lens and whip-crack editing offer glimpses of what he's trying to express. It seems as if Moulin Rouge operates like a preview trailer for the movie you're seeing. Get used to the effect. This movie is relentless.
Christian becomes friendly with a group of bohemian artists, a cartoonish bunch led by diminutive Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (John Leguizamo), with a play to produce. Christian contributes dialogue -- lyrics from The Sound of Music -- and a potential hit is born. It'll take money to produce, but Toulouse-Lautrec has a plan.
He arranges for Christian to meet with sultry Satine (Nicole Kidman), star of the Moulin Rouge dance hall revue. At the same time, her madcap manager Zidler (Jim Broadbent) is trying to match Satine with a wealthy duke (Richard Roxburgh) to seduce him into financing the failing nightclub.
Satine mistakes Christian for the duke, and he confuses her flirting with true love. A backstage love triangle emerges, but plot is the last thing concerning Luhrmann, as it was with so many movie musicals. The elementary story is a sharp contrast to Luhrmann's dynamic musical numbers, something like Cirque de Soleil performers on acid and ecstasy.
Watch the screen explode in motion and color when Christian enters the Moulin Rouge for the first time. We feel his absinthe buzz as can-can harlots and tux-clad dandies rave to the beat of Lady Marmalade, re-mixed into a sonic quilt of familiar riffs. Satine's signature song is, appropriately, Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend, but it also samples Material Girl, linking Kidman with Marilyn Monroe and Madonna in a gold-digger trinity.
Kidman's voice is commendable, but McGregor sends Moulin Rouge into another orbit when he sings. Christian woos Satine with poetry -- the lyrics to Your Song -- then sings it gloriously, tripping through clouds over Paris while a benevolent man in the moon smiles from above. Broadbent re-invents Like a Virgin in a sequence to love and hate simultaneously as Zidler tempts the duke with Satine.
Scenes like those take your breath away. Unfortunately, there are just as many scenes in Moulin Rouge to make a viewer yawn.
When the film slows to a decipherable pace, its lame script and over-the-top performances become more obvious. Jill Bilcock's editing exhausts us, and the gimmick of using song lyrics for dialogue gets old. ("All you need is love," Christian implores. "Love is like oxygen. Love is a many splendored thing.") The second hour stalls when Luhrmann's trickery becomes repetitive and all that holds our interest is wondering what he'll devise next.
But, if a filmmaker errs, it should be on the side of invention, and that's precisely what Luhrmann achieves. It's also what audiences should support, if only to inspire another fanciful artist. Moulin Rouge may become one of the most exciting failures I've ever seen.
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MOVIE REVIEW
Moulin Rouge
- Grade: B
- Director: Baz Luhrmann
- Cast: Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, John Leguizamo, Jim Broadbent, Richard Roxburgh, Kylie Minogue
- Screenplay: Baz Luhrmann, Craig Pearce
- Rating: PG-13; sexual situations, violence
- Running time: 126 min.
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