Sunday, August 12, 2001		Hollywood hues

A taste of the bohemian Paris life
Ervell E. Menezes

HOLLYWOOD has from time to time looked to Paris for inspiration, be it love stories like The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954 with Elizabeth Taylor and Van Johnson) or musicals like An American in Paris (1951 with Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron) or Can-Can (1960 with Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine) and come up with first-rate entertainers..

Nicole Kidman plays a 19th century courtesan in Moulin Rouge

Whether the French admit it or not, it has enhanced the romance associated with that First City of Love. The latest in this line of Parisian entertainers in Moulin Rouge and it brings to life with zest and exuberance those heady bohemian days of the late eighteenth century, revolving around a famous night club of the same name.

"Love is like oxygen, love is a many-splendoured thing," says writer Christian (Ewan McGregor) but he is recounting a sad, sad story. It is about the summer of love (1899) and his chance encounter with can-can dancer and courtesan Satine (Nicole Kidman) or the ‘sparkling diamond’ as she was known in Moulin Rouge. Films about respectable young men falling in love with courtesans are not rare. Quite often the poor young guy is rivalled by a rich, crafty older man. In this case it is the Duke (Richard Roxburg) who pitches in his hat for the hand of Satine, encouraged no doubt by the night-club owner Zidler (Jim Broadbent) because he promises to give Moulin Rouge a facelift.

If director Baz Luhrmann didn’t get his act quite right in William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet he does much better in the turn-of-century Paris. Displaying shades of the recent Shakespeare in Love, this writer is not only wrestling with his muse but is plunged into this decadent world where anything goes, except falling in love.

Satine makes a dramatic entry by revealing her intention in no uncertain lines. "The French are glad to die for love but I prefer a man who loves and gives expensive gifts..." Cut to the Diamond Are A Girl’s Friend song. In fact, it is the music that embellishes the film. It may be modern but it gives the film great thrust with pop songs from Rodgers and Hammerstein to John Lennon and Paul McCartney, from Sting to Elton John and from Dolly Parton to David Bowie. It is a virtual feast of music which often spoofs at the action and numbers like Material Girl, Roxanne, Like A Virgin and Your Song enliven the film when it tends to get a bit melancholy.

The opening can-can number is taken from the 1960 film of the same name and sets the tempo but today’s special effects give Nicole Kidman a flashier entry than Shirley MacLaine ever hoped for. The poor writer Christian, struggling on his Underwood typewriter and pining about his great love, endows the film with enough pathos but the shuttling back and forth is cleverly done and as for the setting — the hands of the windmill never halting like Father Time — could scarcely have been bettered.

The Indian elements are quite pronounced, the elephant in all its finery, the sitar player and of course the Taj Mahal, show that India is after all a big market for Hollywood and the West. Not for nothing did director Luhrmann make a trip to coincide with the film’s release.

Co-scriptwriter Craig Pearce does well to combine age-old Paris with modern thought and music and Kidman may not have the geniality of an effervescent Shirley MacLaine but she grows from strength to strength as the story unravels. Ewan McGregor does much better than he did in A Life Less Ordinarybut then one must consider there is much more meat in this role. Yet he refrains from making a glutton of the meal. May be, he overdoes his act in the rather Hindi film-style climax, but then the blame is not entirely his. It is Luhrmann who should have exercised more restraint.

John Leguizamo’s Taoulouse-Lautree is zesty enough as are the other colourful characters even if they haven’t to do much else than face the camera. Their attire and ample form serve the purpose. It is an excellent recreation of that bohemian era in Paris where prince and pauper could meet if not rub shoulders. Freedom, beauty, truth and love may not find equal expression in this representation of those revolution days but the greatest of these of course is love, even if the writer learns it the hard way.

May be the spacing is not quite right and it makes for some loose moments but all in all, it is a fine entertainer and though glitz and glamour tends to dominate there is also enough attention paid to content.