Journey to the Moulin Rouge

Out of the hundreds of movies I have seen (1500+), one movie stole my heart back in 2001 and remains my favorite movie of all time. That movie is Moulin Rouge starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor. Its a story about love presented to us in a musical's flashy package and is directed by Baz Luhrman who also remains one of my favorites. It was also nominated for several Oscars and won Best Costume and Art Direction.

Christian is a poor bohemian writer who has come to Paris to write about truth, beauty and love. He gets roped into writing a play for Howard Zidler (who owns the Moulin Rouge) and his ladies of the night who want to become real actresses. Christian falls in love with the star of the Moulin Rouge, Satine. Satine, however, is a courtesan and doesn't believe in love. She is paid to make men fall in love with her. In order to produce the play at the Moulin Rouge, Zidler needs an investor so they can convert the night playground into a theater. He gets an investor in the form of The Duke, who wants the deed to the Moulin Rouge and sole access to Satine as his price for investing. However, sometime between the plays conception and its preformance Satine falls in love with Christian and cannot preform with The Duke. The Duke gets mad, of course, and threatens to kill Christian unless Satine becomes his. Will Satine continue to live a life without love to save Christian or can there be a happy ending? You need to watch this movie to find out.

One thing about this film, it that it is quite chaotic at the beginning, its loud and colorful and seems to be a roller coaster to nowhwere. But just give it time to settle down after the initial 20 minutes or so, it settles down to be quite a good film.

This movie has a lot of things going for it. One is the music. I love the music in this film. The 2 original songs are good and the mish mash of songs lace together to make some of the other songs was very unusal but fun. The costumes were great (hence the Oscar). Satine has some lovely costumes and dresses. The story is great. Its a forbidden love story. The one we always want to end happily but hardly ever does.

The acting is also great. Ewan McGregor is perfect as Christian. You can almost hear his heart break throughout the film and you just want to take him home with you and tell him it will be okay. Nicole Kidman is excellent as the Hooker with a heart of gold. She can play the game, be cold and distance, but in the end she loves Chritian and even she cannot deny it. Jim Broadbent plays the vivacious Harry Zidler that will do almost anything to make his Moulin Rouge into a theater, but he does seem to care about his girls as well. Richard Roxburough plays the Duke. He is an excellent bad guy--we all love to hate him.

This movie has a wonderful story, told in an unusal manner. If you haven't seen it--what are you waiting for? I saw it twice at the theater. Rent it today!

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