Review of Cabaret (1993) by Barbara D — 22 Jul 2010

Wow. Cabaret, where have you been all my life? Honestly, this is one of those movies that is so good, you'll wonder how you went so long without seeing it. Well, I did see it when I was about 11 or 12, but that doesn't count because I forgot most of what happened and I was too young to understand what was going on.

But still, I can't remember the last time I'd raved about how I loved a movie so much because recently, I've been ranting on how much I've hated some of the movies I've seen lately. But Cabaret was just genius. Everything about it worked: the casting was great, the musical numbers were extraordinary, it had a deep ending and it managed to expose racism without ever getting preachy or schmaltzy.

Usually with the movies I've seen lately, there are little faults that annoy me, so I usually nitpick, but I couldn't find anything to nitpick in this movie. The movie actually succeeded in certain aspects that other movies would fall prey to. For example, the pacing was perfect. It never seemed too slow or too quick and it was never boring. The musical numbers were also authentic and I was never under the impression that the movie was made in the 70s. Another mistake that movies make is having boring subplots that don't further the plot at all, but this actually had an intriguing subplot about a Jewish couple. That subplot may not have been important in terms of Sally's career or her main problems, but it was really believable and added a new amount of depth to the movie.

That was another thing I liked about it; the depth. The characters in it are all complex, and well rounded with realistic faults, especially Sally. She may appear to be a happy-go-lucky girl who does whatever she wants, but in reality she has serious problems. In the end though, she still has problems and still hasn't found herself. Normally, endings like this annoy me but in this case, I don't think it would've worked any other way.

Besides the characters, the other thing that was so deep about this movie was its portrayal of the Nazis rising to power. The Nazis are never part of the main plot, but they add an ominous, creepy atmosphere to the movie. There's one particularly powerful scene where we see a young tenor singing what appears to be a patriotic song but when the camera pans down, we see that he is in a brown Nazi uniform. As the song progresses, the croud begins to sing passionately with him and as soon as this happen, Sally and the others leave immediately. And of course, there was the ending where we see Nazis in the cabaret. My initial reaction was: "What!?" But then I realised something: if the movie had ended with Sally singing a happy song, the audience would've been confused because she may be happy, but the Nazis are rising and we all know what's coming. So if they hadn't addressed it, it would've been awkward. As a result, we get a chilling, powerful ending that it hardly seen in musicals.

Overall, Cabaret deserved all the acclaim it got. I would recommend any movie lover to see this movie. I would even recommend this to people who generally hate musicals because I think even they would love it. It's pure genius and I can see why it's such a classic.