Moulin Rouge!

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One of my favourite films. This is a story about Truth, Beauty, Freedom and above all things, Love.Christian is a young writer come from London to Paris to live a penniless existence and write about love. The only problem is, he has never been in love. This changes radically when he lays eyes on the “sparkling diamond” Satine, a can-can dancer at the Moulin Rouge.

He convinces her that they should be together, but what neither of them knows is that she is suffering from a fatal disease. The other problem for their love is that the rich, insanely jealous Duke wants to have Satine to himself and is spending a fortune to turn the Moulin Rouge into a theatre.

The first twenty minutes are a dazzling mixture of colour, light, music, singing and dance. Everything is going so fast that the audience is swept up in this strange and wonderful world. It slows down after a while when the actual story begins. The camera angles and cutting techniques are quite unusual. It is a bit like watching a very long music video.

“Come What May” is the only song written specially for the movie. All the other songs were taken from popular music, such as “Roxanne” (Sting), “Your Song” (Elton John) and “Like a Virgin” (Madonna).

Moulin Rouge! is the third film in Baz Luhrmann’s “Red Curtain Trilogy”, which includes Strictly Ballroom and William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (another one of my favourites). It is a spectacle of costumes, lights and great songs. Not to be missed!