Review of Moulin Rouge! (2001) by Mitchell S — 12 Jul 2017

Not just the resurrection of the joyful musical, years after Cabaret destroyed it, but also the one true idealistic afterthought that Love Truly Exists, even if it's fleeting, even if it's doomed. A wonderfully optimistic movie, with nuances that might be lost the first time you watch it. A joyful tragedy and visual masterpiece that still dwarfs all other lavish musicals.

Moulin Rouge! is a visual assault masquerading as a musical. Baz Luhrmann's film is hyper and surreal, a childhood view of romance and freedom, with love as the most shimmery and exotic of effigies. It's a movie intended to alienate most music lovers and challenge regular moviegoers with psychedelic visions posing as rambunctious merriment. Yes, it is the ultimate "poser" movie and posing was where the 21st century was headed. People forget that Moulin Rouge! was singlehandedly the movie that brought back the musical to Hollywood, after the genre's untimely death in 1972. While Evita was released a few years before Moulin Rouge!, that movie was Andrew Lloyd Webber's gratuity to Hollywood; a lazily imagined vanity package for Madonna. Moulin Rouge! was the evolution of music in show business-proof that we never stopped singing, we just needed a change of scenery.

What I Learned: I fell in love with this movie just as I lost someone I really cared about. I think the psychedelic doomsday vision of "love" really helped me through the grieving process. I also think it really helped me to fall in love with The Musical. Up until this point, I don't think I associated music with art. I think this film, with Cabaret, showed me that music could be grief; it could be tormented art; it could be therapeutic and not just a fake smile to the world.