"The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and loved in return. " A very simple message and a message that has been universally expressed in poetry, painting, song, opera throughout history. In Moulin Rouge, Baz Lurhmann summates the various expressions into a movie that more than the sum of the individual parts.
Moulin Rouge is set in a French bordello at the turn of the century. A play within a play, a penniless writer writes a play about a woman that must choose between a poor sitar player and a rich Marahajah. Mirroring the play, the writer is in love with Satine, the star actress. A rich duke finances the production on condition he can have sole access to Satine's services. Throughout the movie, Sitane wavers between love and security. As she swings back and forth, the characters communicate their feelings through song. With the exception of the lover's secret "come what may", the songs are not original. They are famous love songs from a diverse array of musical genres. By integrating a diverse array of songs, Lurhmann shows the universality of love as an emotion.
The plot of a poor artist and his dying lover bears relation to the Giacomo Puccini opera La bohème and Giuseppe Verdi's opera La traviata. Moulin Rouge's structure has come some elements of Bollywood films that likewise have a simple story line with a simple conflict, a melodramatic heroine, two-dimensional characters, and a play within a play.
On one level, there is nothing uniquely Australian about Moulin Rouge. The songs are predominantly American and British, the plot is Italian inspired, the structure is Bollywood inspired, and it is set in Paris. That said, it is extremely unlikely that any other country would produce such a movie. Despite being set in France, there are too many non-French cultural expressions for the French to ever claim ownership of such a movie. For fear of corrupting their traditional cultures, most of Europe would probably have similar aversions to such an extreme level of cultural mashing. ( It is possible that America could produce such a movie, and American money did in fact finance the film.) Unlike Europe, Australia is not averse to cultural mashing as there is little fear of foreign influencers corrupting Australia's traditional culture. If anything, foreign culture is embraced as it is an excuse to disassociate the present from Australia's convict past.
Even though Moulin Rouge is not based on Australian characters or stories, the movie is very Australian in that it reflects a bohemian spirit of the early 20th century that exists in aspects of Australian society today. As 20 per cent of the Australian population are immigrants, Australia is flooded with the diverse cultures of the world. Furthermore, many of the native born have a strong desire to embrace and integrate these cultures into something new. It is this talent of integration where Lurhmann's genius resides. For example, by blending the Police's "Roxanne", a song about a prostitute, with the Tango, a dance invented in Argentine brothels, Lurhmann blends the cultures of two different countries to create something completely unique. Likewise, when he uses Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit to capture the bohemian spirit of Paris in the early 19th century, he blends cultural expressions from completely different eras. It is with great irony then that Lurhmann created something uniquely Australian by incorporating artistic themes that are so universal.
Moulin Rouge was nominated for eight Oscars and took $175 million internationally. It's global appeal should have been a huge shot in the arm for the Australian movie industry. Unfortunately, the next major Australian movie was Rabbit-proof Rence by action movie director Phillip Noyce. Lacking the nuances of an art house director, Noyce divided Australians into black and white camps. In so doing, he re-politicised the Australian industry and flushed it back down the toilet.
