Some years later Luhrmann grew up to become a successful film director. Unfortunately for him, this came about at a time when musicals were no longer considered viable. Such films were not making money anymore during the ‘90s and for a while it looked like he will never be able to capture on camera all those breathtaking scenes that had been living in his mind for years.
But he certainly found a way. Thanks to ingenuity and a genuine love for the medium, Luhrmann was still able to effectively use music in his films. He made ballroom dancing the base for his Cannes Prix de la Jeunesse winner Strictly Ballroom. Then he turned William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet into an MTV showcase and won Best Director in the Berlin Film Festival.
The acclaim and the good box-office results of these pictures paved the way for Luhrmann’s first real screen musical, Moulin Rouge. This is a big-budgeted extravaganza spiced with nearly everything that Luhrmann can think of. It derives from the Greek myth of Orpheus and is set in the decadent world of the Paris nightclub Moulin Rouge at the turn of the century. Playing the lead roles are Nicole Kidman as Satine, a beautiful courtesan, Ewan McGregor as Christian, a penniless poet and John Leguizamo as Toulouse Lautrec.
Although much has already been written and heard about the movie, nothing still quite prepares the viewer for the explosion of sounds and images that Moulin Rouge turns out to be. An assault on the senses is the only way to describe the film’s opening sequence. If your faculties survive this intact or better yet, if you are able to hop into this roller coaster, you will surely be able to enjoy this extraordinary piece of filmmaking.
McGregor is both narrator and lead character. He tells the story of his doomed romance with Satine and how he survived his stint as a writer in the sexually and morally decadent club. Like Orpheus, he descends into hell, Moulin Rouge, to save the woman he loves. This love though is not enough to keep them together and like Armand of La Traviata, he loses her to consumption.
Kidman, who looks her most beautiful in this film, is his Violetta, the woman for hire who sees the glimmer of a brighter future when the Duke of Worcester agrees to produce a musical that will showcase her talents as an actress and turn the Moulin Rouge into a real theater. This also delights Zidler, the owner of the club and Christian, who gets his break as a writer. The only problem is Satine and Christian fall in love and this relationship brings about the conflict in the story.
Luhrmann makes only a token effort to solve the problem. Despite the near violent confrontation towards the end, he still resolves everything by making Satine a victim of the excesses of her lifestyle. Christian is broken-hearted. Zidler loses his star. And the Duke loses his investment. Kidman looks a triple too healthy to be stricken with TB but this is a musical where fantasy reigns and if the director chooses to give his leading lady a Camille death scene in the arms of her lover, so be it. This whole exercise has nothing to do with reality anyway and is really meant to find out how capable Luhrmann is in suspending disbelief.
Suspend it he does. And he accomplished this by holding the tale together with an alluring mix of Broadway, Hollywood, vaudeville, Bollywood and regular MTV scenes and the most diverse combination of music ever envisioned for the screen. How does McGregor burst into "The hills are alive with the sound of music ..., strike you? What about dancing the tango to Sting’s Roxanne. Not very palatable at first thought but incredibly enough, Luhrmann makes the whole package work. He does the same with Elton John’s Your Song, juxtaposed with Offenbach’s Can Can, snatches of Material Girl in Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend and so many more medleys and combinations I once thought inconceivable.
Kidman is an adequate singer and every inch the screen siren. I’ve never seen McGregor look this handsome and every inch the sensitive poet. He sings well, too. There is not much for John Leguizamo to do as Toulouse-Lautrec but he is always a wonderful, arresting presence. Jim Broadbent, that fantastic actor from Topsy Turvy is brilliant as the alternately fatherly and scheming Zidler and he nearly runs away with the film with his Like a Virgin number.
They all pale in comparison to the picture though. Moulin Rouge is glitzy kitsch. It is also mad and outrageous. But then it is also dazzling and stunning in its opulence and heartbreakingly beautiful. One cannot help but marvel at the wealth of Luhrmann’s imagination, his audacity, how he dares the different and how he goes through the entire mile and more in bringing his vision to fruition. The lunacy of the entire thing is strangely thrilling, much like those moments when you feel like breaking into song, a little jig or whatever it is you fancy and to hell with those who are watching or listening.