A lot of people went gaga for Holy Motors this past year, including me. But one thing I thought while watching it was hmm, why does this remind me of Moulin Rouge? It may be simply that the use of stunning visuals, not necessarily just great looking images but the combination of light and color and movement that just grabs your eyes and won’t let go, that I don’t recall any movie quite nailing between my viewings of those two strikingly different films. Holy Motors was fairly sparse in what it did visually, while Moulin Rouge was the polar opposite, deliberately overloading all of our sense, not least of which our eyes.
The Great Gatsby appears to be a visual follow-up to Moulin Rouge. Strictly Ballroom showed hints of this unique visual style, Romeo + Juliet had a few more elements of it, and Australia went for a more classical Western look, all the power to it. But Moulin Rouge was absolutely dazzling, purposefully excessive, decadent, showcasing a world that was simultaneously bright and beautiful and also haunting and surreal. It’s like David Lynch staging an opera it’s so surreal. And the light and movement seems like it will never stop, overwhelming us, and just when we feel like we can’t take us anymore, Luhrmann pushes us just a little further, and then strips everything down to a nearly silent shot of Nicole Kidman’s blue face. How is that not absolutely enthralling?
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Published: May 10, 2013 11:30 am