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Director Baz Luhrmann’s latest extravaganza, an exuberant re-envisioning of the movie musical and an operatic salute to 20th-century pop culture, borrows from everywhere yet manages to be a cinematic experience unlike any other. Recalling Puccini’s La Bohème, Lurhmann sets his tale in the world’s original pop-pleasure dome, the Moulin Rouge of fin de siècle Paris. Ewan McGregor stars as Christian, an idealistic and impoverished young writer who, newly arrived in Montmartre, is haphazardly inducted into a circle of absinthe-swilling bohemians led by Toulouse-Lautrec (John Leguizamo). A comedy of mistaken identities ensues, quickly enmeshing the young poet in a Mephistophelean love triangle involving the unobtainable and consumptive Satine (Nicole Kidman), queen courtesan of the Moulin Rouge, and the foppish Duke of Roxbury (Richard Roxburgh), his villainous rival for her affections. Granted, you may find yourself reaching for an oxygen tank, thanks to the centrifugal force of Luhrmann’s MTV editing style, combined with some staggering musical cross-pollination (sources range from David Bowie’s version of the pop standard "Nature Boy" to Beck’s version of Bowie’s "Diamond Dogs"). But it’s worth it. Moulin Rouge is exhausting, but it's also energizing and inexplicably moving. Kidman dazzles in a series of original costumes, and the elaborately constructed sets are equally stupendous. Look for a superb performance from Topsy Turvey’s Jim Broadbent as Zidler, the Moulin Rouge’s soft and fuzzy Faust. He also heads up one of the film’s more hilarious song-and-dance sequences, stomped out to Madonna’s "Like a Virgin." The double-disc DVD of Moulin Rouge -- which includes excellent production commentary, interviews with the director and writer, and at least ten hidden Easter Egg trailers -- offers welcome insight into the method behind the madness of this thoroughly postmodern folly. Virginia McCollam

All Movie Guide

The third film from pop-music-obsessed director Baz Luhrmann tweaks the conventions of the musical genre by mixing a period romance with anachronistic dialogue and songs in the style of his previous Romeo+Juliet (1996). Ewan McGregor stars as Christian, who leaves behind his bourgeois father during the French belle époque of the late 1890s to seek his fortunes in the bohemian underworld of Montmartre, Paris. Christian meets the absinthe- and alcohol-addicted artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (John Leguizamo), who introduces him to a world of sex, drugs, music, theater, and the scandalous dance known as the cancan, all at the Moulin Rouge, a decadent dance hall, brothel, and theater that's the brainchild of Harold Zidler (Jim Broadbent). Christian also meets and falls into a tragically doomed romance with the courtesan Satine (Nicole Kidman), who becomes the star of the play he's writing, which parallels the couple's romance and utilizes rock music from a century later, including songs by Nirvana, Madonna, the Beatles, and Queen, among others. Loosely based on the opera Orpheus in the Underworld, Moulin Rouge was shown in competition at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. Karl Williams

Entertainment Weekly

It slashes through the distance that so many of us feel toward musicals. Owen Gleiberman

San Francisco Chronicle

So cheeky, aggressive and bursting with vitality that it can't help being annoying and exhilarating at the same time. Edward Guthmann

Product Details

• UPC: 024543057659
• Source: 20TH CENTURY FOX
• Region Code: 1
• Editions: Subtitled
• Time: 2:08:00
• Sales Rank: 1,034

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• Red Curtain Trilogy
• Romantic Tales Collection
• Moulin Rouge (1952)/ 2001) (2 Discs)
• The Fox-MGM Hollywood Musicals Collection
• Moulin Rouge/the Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

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