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Baz Luhrmann is obviously someone not afraid of challenge.
He took the bain of every 16-24 year old's life - not only Shakespeare but Romeo & Juliet - and
turned it into the hippest film of the year. Next he managed to
top the pop charts with an anti-youth, anti-pop song detailing the inanities & inevitabilities
of adult life. And if this weren't enough, he has now took it upon himself to resurrect the
deadest of Hollywood genres (if you don't count South Park: The Movie ) - the musical.
This being Baz Luhrmann though, he doesn't leave it there. He manages to weave a script of ridiculous
proportions that combines the most incredible, heart-wrenching & truly awful pop songs of the
last few decades into a magical work of utter splendour. How could anyone possibly
imagine
blending the lyrics to Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit, Madonna's Like A Virgin & Material Girl,
legends like Elton John, John Lennon,
Freddie Mercury, The Beatles, (oh no) Celine Dion right down to the obscure delight of Lamb's Gorecki
and then placate
them all into a workable script, recomposing every track so it fits neatly into a turn of the
century French cabaret showcase? The most
astounding feat of the whole debacle is that it works. In fact it doesn't just work, it sparkles like a
girl's best friend. In
fact the whole charade is so over the top they have to name it Spectacular! Spectacular! to even
BEGIN to make the point.
And the point, being Luhrmann, is such a song and dance it's impossible to put into words. The story
is a an old fashioned, modern-day fairytale, drunk on absinthe, shot up with adrenaline and
topped off with an overdose of LSD. Moulin Rouge is utter madness and more. More visually intense
than Natural Born Killers, more OTT than Jim Carey, more extravagant than Kubrick or Scorsese or could
ever dream & all held together by a stubbornly self-referential, non-existent script and a director
who is quite obviously insane. And still this
isn't even close to describing Moulin Rouge. The film is SO mesmerizingly complicated yet
translates so simply it must be a kind of magic holding the whole thing together. Or kitsch. Or maybe
the polarizing presence of both Ozzy Osbourne AND Kylie Minogue. Although
most probably love.
I seem to have got into the habit of calling every good film that comes along sublime but after
watching Moulin Rouge you truly begin to understand the meaning of the word. Nothing like this
has ever been made before and probabaly never will again (at least until Luhrmann is unleashed again).
So go and see it. Don't be put off by the sluttish, chicken-legged cabaret of Christina Aguilera
et al - that song and video are a blistering insult to the best film of this year and surely ONE OF
the best films EVER made. I don't say these words lightly: Spectacular! Spectacular!
And to think, I didn't even want to go and see it...
RATING: (c)Limer 2001
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Moulin Rouge (Cinema: October 2001)
