Peter Rainer on MOULIN ROUGE:

"Lurhmann is a student of Busby Berkeley at his most high-fructose as well as the tutti-frutti tradition of Bombay musicals, with their berserk wriggling and instantaneous breaking-into-song. He makes one long for the relative sedateness of the Ken Russell who made TOMMY. Luhrmann hauls in everything from Rodgers & Hammerstein to 'Nature Boy' to 'Roxanne' to LaBelle's 'Lady Marmalade', and the songs tend to segue into one another, medley-style. It's like being trapped inside a fever dream of Oscar-night production numbers."

"Although McGregor and Kidman do their own singing, they seem vaguely disembodied when they warble---not so much because of technical difficulties but because the emotions don't seem to be emanating from the person...None of these characters resonates even as an archetype because Luhrmann is too busy trying to ram them down our throats. Fellini at his most orgiastic never gave us so many lurid close-ups of grease-painted cavorters and plug-uglies. And this is a movie that pretends to be making some kind of fashion statement! Even Nicole Kidman has a fright-night pallor: dark-rimmed eyes, fire-truck-red lips, bone-white complexion---all this before she gets consumption."

"Lurhmann can't be criticized for not achieving what he set out to do. MOULIN ROUGE has the awful completeness of a fully realized bum vision...His movie is reminiscent of those bygone behemoth attempts to revive silent slapstick comedy, such as IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD, in which an overload of antics replaced inspiration. MOULIN ROUGE references just about every splashy forties musical ever made, plus quite a few others, but what's missing is the simplicity of spirit that gave the best musicals their transcendence."

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lou Goldberg:
intelligent science-fiction film

---

Still...As good as Kidman was, I was totally hooked by Ewan McGregor’s passionate
singing and heartfelt performance. He was stunning. Some of the numbers between him
and Kidman merited rewinding and reviewing, especially the series of love songs sung on
her roof. The orchestrations of the songs were powerful and some of the best I’ve ever
heard.

Underneath my very optimistic, bright & happy personality I am probably even more cynical creature than old Lou here - I really wouldn't mind if this planet would be blown to bits - but as long as I have to live here with my fellow people, I admire all them who are bold enough to at least try to remind us that LIFE is FOR LIVING (- and I myself belong to this group of people who want to make every possible effort to remind fellow people about life's more positive ingredients).

Being such a complicated creature, I always fall in love with the movies which dare to be as complicated as I am. MOULIN ROUGE is exactly this: It speaks about the joy, the beauty, of life itself, but includes also the message of our mortality and the more negative aspects of life - and still gives the viewer faith to believe that LIFE WINS ...joy wins, beauty wins. And that is the truth.

Cynicism is based only on doubting things - LIFE, on the other hand, is REAL; life contains good things and bad things, and yet the good things are those which people want to "live" and to remember.

Now, I know MOULIN ROUGE is only a movie, and has its flaws (- like too quick editing -) but still I'm amazed when people claim it wasn't anything realistic. GEEEZZZ - life itself isn't NEVER realistic, but only movies are blamed being unrealistic. Sure, the comedics of MOULIN ROUGE may have made it impossible for some people to swallow it - but unfortunately I say that it has been those people's own fault, not the movie's fault, if the people haven't been able to get touched by it.

MOULIN ROUGE possesses an incredible amount of emotion for the people who are willing to see it, to feel it, and to believe it,
that LIFE is and will always be BEAUTIFUL, JOYFUL, and meant to be lived for.