Australian director Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge opened this year's Cannes International Film Festival yesterday, stunning audiences with the innovative musical featuring starlet Nicole Kidman.
The film is a steamy mix of 1940s Marlene Dietrich cabaret and decadent 19th century Paris. But the film also includes modern pop tunes, such as Madonna's Material Girl, Elton John's Your Song, Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit and Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend by Marilyn Monroe.
As a fitting opening for the festival, Moulin Rouge packed in all the entertainment elements of the famous cabaret that gave the film its name, with abundant music, singing and dancing and stars. Kidman plays Satine, the Sparkling Diamond, star of the Moulin Rouge and the city's most famous courtesan. Ewan McGregor is a writer in the film, who falls in love with Satine, and the two embark on a doomed love affair.
PHOTO: REUTERS
McGregor said of the film, "it's a story about love," which basically sums it up. It is a simple story, in which Luhrmann's cinematic presentation, as opposed to the plot, is the driving force to the movie. He successfully depicts the tragi-comic, glamorous underworld through his ultra-modern lens of sharp, high contrast images and fast editing and zoom in/zoom outs.
Music and more precisely the songs are central elements of the film, as much of the romance "dialogue" is delivered in the actors' singing parts. For example, Kidman finds herself absorbed in McGregor's passion when she hears him singing The sound of music, or Elton John's Your Song and Come What May, a song written for the film by David Forster.
At the press conference after to the press screening, Luhrmann described the film as an "Australian way of storytelling."
"Most cinematic naturalism puts the audience into a dream state so that they may observe reality, if you like, through a key hole. Whereas we employ a constant device that awakens the audience and reminds them that at all times they are watching a film, in which they are impelled to participate. This constant reminder in Strictly Ballroom (Luhrmann's first feature film) is the use of dance; in William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet it is the 400-year-old Shakespearean dialogue. In Moulin Rouge, our device to awaken [the audience] is the experience of song. Yes, Moulin Rouge is fundamentally a musical, perhaps an opera, but finally a story told through song."
Kidman was of course the focus of media attention yesterday. Luhrmann decided was the perfect woman for the part after seeing her singing and dancing in a Broadway play In the Blue Room.
"It's a film with a lot of physical challenge. We have to sing and dance a lot," said Kidman, who wore a red and white Chinese-style dress yesterday at the press conference.
Ewan McGregor takes on a new type of role in this film as man completely lost in love. The film also gives him a chance for him demonstrate his singing talent. "I was musical at school, and used to dance when I was a kid. And I've always had a passion for the old 1940s musicals," he said.
A list of the 23 films competing for the Golden Palm top prize at the Cannes film festival
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*Moulin Rouge by Baz Luhrmann (US)
*Distance by Kore-Eda Hirokazu (Japan)
*Pau i el seu Germa (Pau and his brother) by Marc Recha (Spain)
*Kandahar by Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Iran)
*Shrek by Victoria Jenson and Andrew Adamson (US)
*No Man's Land by Danis Tanovic (Bosnia)
*La Repetition (The Rehearsal) by Catherine Corsini (France)
*The Man Who Wasn't There by Joel Cohen (US)
*Vou Para Casa (I'm Going Home) by Manoel de Oliveira (Portugal)
*Roberto Succo by Cedric Kahn (France)
*La Pianiste (The Pianist) by Michael Haneke (Austria)
*The Pledge by Sean Penn (US)
*Eloge de l'Amour (Eulogy of Love) by Jean-Luc Godard (Switzerland)
*Il Mestiere delle Armi (The Profession of Arms) by Ermanno Olmi (Italy)
*Va Savoir (Go Figure) by Jacques Rivette (France)
*Mulholland Drive by David Lynch (US)
La Stanza del Figlio (The Son's Room) by Nanni Moretti (Italy)
*Ni Nei Pien Chi Tien (What Time is it Over There?) by Tsai Ming-liang (Taiwan)
*Taurus by Alexander Sokurov (Russia)
*La Chambre des Officiers (The Officers' Room) by Francois Dupeyron (France)
*Desert Moon by Aoyama Shinji (Japan)
*Millennium Mambo by Hou Hsiao Hsien (Taiwan)
*Akai Hashi Noshitano Nurui Mizu (Tepid Water Under a Red Bridge) by Imamura Shohei (Japan)
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