Metaplanar Babel

I watched one of my favorite movies again a few days ago. I am amazed every time I see the movie at how incredibly powerful the thing is. I love musicals anyway, and Moulin Rouge is an excellent representation of what could be considered a “modern” musical, even more so than Andrew Lloyd Webber. Though granted, ALW wrote for stage, not film, and Moulin Rouge would probably lose a lot in the translation to stage, so it’s not really a fair comparison.

Anyway, I would have thought, before seeing the movie, that having pop songs reformatted to fit into the setting of 1900 Paris would be kind of hokey, but it really works. The more original songs have a lot more meaning, to be sure, but the other numbers have nice nostalgic value, I guess. Ewan McGregor is awesome, as he is in any movie in which he sings, and Nicole Kidman was great too. Amusing sidenote: Audrey, an extremely bit part from the beginning of the movie, is played by the same actor as Karl from Van Helsing and Faramir from LotR. How’s that for versatility?

Don’t read any further if you don’t want spoilers. If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend that you do.

My favorite scene in the movie is this scene where the narcoleptic Argentinian shows off his gravelly voice and dance moves with Roxanne. Gah. It gives me literal chills, especially when intermingled with Ewan McGregor’s song and the events with the Duke and Satine in the Gothic Tower and the stomp of the dancers’ feet. I’ve been to my share of stage musicals and plays, but I’ve never had anything hit me quite the way this scene does. What’s even more amazing is that it does so every time I watch it, even though I know it’s coming. My memory is always a pale shadow of the scene itself. Blows my mind, it does.

Also, I know some people aren’t fond of Nicole Kidman (Jon being one of them), but her performance in this movie is just phenomenal. I never could decide if she was actually singing for herself (though the voice was shaky enough that I’m inclined to believe it could have been), but even if she wasn’t, I’m impressed. Everyone raves about Chicago and Catherine Zeta-Jones / Renee Zellweger, but in my opinion, that movie had nothing on Moulin Rouge. Call me crazy, but Moulin Rouge was such an emotional rollercoaster ride, and Chicago just didn’t have that kind of impact. It was a good movie too, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t even put them in the same league.

Anyway, I really love this movie, and anything that I say will just lead back to that, so I’m going to be quiet.