MOVIE REVIEW: Moulin Rouge! (2001)

“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

“Pretentious,” “obnoxious,” “loathsome,” etc., you will find people describing the movie in such words, but I will say ‘Moulin Rouge’ is Spectacular Spectacular! And even I can’t believe I am writing a full-length review for a romance based movie, my least favourite genre, or a genre listed at last. I don’t know what I loved the most: the enchanting eyes of Nicole, the hypnotic voice of Ewan, euphonious fusion of popular music and songs, extravagant use of colours in almost everything, and kinetic, exuberant acting by the whole cast. Roger Ebert rightly remarks that “everything is screwed to a breakneck pitch as if the characters have died and their lives are flashing before our eyes.” At the 74^th Academy Awards, it was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actress for Nicole. And for me, after The Blues Brothers, this is my second favourite musical movie. 

It’s 1900, and it begins with a very strange, enchanted boy’, Christian (Ewan MacGregor. O boy, he is really enchanting!), a penniless, wanna be a writer, who comes to Paris, full of bohemian belief of ‘Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love.’ Soon he falls for a cabaret star dancer of the nightclub Moulin Rouge, Satine (Nicole, a heartthrob of a Kid to Man), a redhead beauty with beautiful blue eyes. But there is are a few hurdles between them. The Duke (Richard Roxburgh), who will finance the play, ‘Spectacular Spectacular,’ also falls for Satine and wants her anyhow. But they have to face a bigger problem, and that is a fatal secret of Satine. The movie has a very simple love story of a triangle, but it is presented in a histrionic style that it seems like you are watching it after doing the drug or drinking heavily.

As already mentioned, this is a bombastic mixture of the 70s and 80s popular music. ‘The Sound of Music,’ ‘Roxanne,’ ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,’ ‘Material Girl,’ ‘Like A Virgin,’ ‘Chhamma Chhamma,’ and many more are fused together so well, so it seems they got their new identity. But my personal favourite is the use of Elton John’s ‘Your Song,’ sung by Ewan so well that I like this version so much that it surpasses not just various covers of it, but I like it more than even the original. When Nicole rolling all over the floor and suddenly Ewan takes the high pitch and starts the song, my heart skipped a bit! That whole scene when Satin and Christian meet each other for the first time, and Ewan sings to her, and takes her to the sky and climbs over the Eiffel Tower, even the moon singing for them heart out, I lost movie critic in me somewhere there, lost myself in it completely. ‘Come what may,’ the only original song in this jukebox musical, was nominated for Oscar, so imagine how good the movie might have used the other songs.

This came in 2001. This year produced Mulholland Dr., Amelie, Donnie Darko, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Spirited away, etc. This is the year of fantasy, craziness, bizarre, imagination, limitlessness, experiments. I love this year! And this film? Well, it’s my guilty pleasure, though it is more than just it, then it falls in either you hate it or love it category. And I have heard stories that people who could not tolerate it in the first few minutes left theatres in anger, but who stayed there till the end, came out in tears. Give it a chance. Even if you don’t like it, you will experience a fantastic mash-up of melodious music.

Come what may, I love this movie, until my dying day…