films you have walked out of

[librarian]

Moulin Rouge

I have noticed that opinions vary on this film. Put simply, you all hate it. I love it, but it's more than love, it's a belief that this film is really important.

It might have taken a gay Australian to do it, but Moulin Rouge marks a turning point in the relationship between Indian culture and the West. Lurhmann was struck by the lightness of plot in Indian movies, the absence of complication within the characters, and the lack of introspection. You don’t have to puzzle out Moulin Rouge – it’s there to see. The star-crossed lovers, the inflated fool, the evil older man, the lower orders of artists and theatricals pure of heart except the betrayer, whose betrayal is all the more shocking. You simply surrender to the colour and the singing. And the colour and the singing, while just a shaaaaade on the camp side, are absolutely fabulous. Ewan McGregor is no Caruso, but he is astonishingly direct – if there is a more straightforward display of love on screen then I can’t remember it.

Only Nicole Kidman’s character is troubled by doubt, but that doubt is itself the most well worn story - to marry for love or money? That’s it for complexity – it simply remains to see who will live or die, and there’s not much question about that once she starts coughing up blood.

So Moulin Rouge is an antidote to fifty years of complexity. I adore the films of Nicholas Ray, Elia Kazan and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, but sometimes you have to put the tortured soul thing to one side and just tell it how it is. And Moulin Rouge is how it is. Or should be. Love is All.