Moulin Rouge! (2001 film)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Though he is a thoroughly unpleasant man- and an attempted rapist to boot- it can be quite hard not to feel sorry for the Duke. Satine did, indeed, make him think that she loved him, and she treated him spectacularly badly thanks to her infatuation with Christian. Doesn't excuse the rape and threatened murder, but the Duke could be considered more sympathetic if you see things from his side.
    • Essentially, Satine is a prostitute who manipulates her client into spending a ton of money on her and on a musical that covertly mocks him. She sleeps with his employee instead of him, and everyone covers up for them and mocks him behind his back. Not to mention she still takes clients even after finding out she has an infectious disease. (She doesn't really have much choice in the matter, though.)
    • Was Nini Legs-in-the-air a complete Jerkass for giving away Christine and Satine, or was she entirely justified? Considering everyone was relying on Satine becoming the Duke's consort so he would fund the Moulin Rouge, and the couple just seemed to rely on everyone to keep the secret for them without being exactly discreet about it themselves, it's amazing the Duke didn't find them out in the first place.
    • It's heavily implied she's motivated by jealousy, as everyone covets the "Sparkling Diamond" Satine, whereas Nini is just another Diamond Dog.
  • Awesome Music: "El Tango De Roxane", "Elephant Love Medley", and "Come What May".
  • Non Sequitur Scene: Toulouse's reprise of Your Song after the Elephant Love Medley. It sort of makes sense later but at the time it is flat out of nowhere.
  • Cliché Storm: A positive example.
  • Complete Monster: The Duke, in the second half.
  • Covered Up: Many don't know that "Lady Marmalade" was originally done by Labelle in The Seventies. Also, in spite of its popularity and the fact that it was used in a good deal of the film's marketing, that was not the version actually used in the film. The song itself, blended with Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and original verse spoken by Jim Broadbent, is the first really big number in the film.
  • Esoteric Happy Ending: It's really, really hard to find the good in the situation at the film's opening: Satine dead, Christian almost broken with grief, the Moulin Rouge a closed-down, decrepit ruin. However, the absolutely epic triumph over the Duke infers that the protagonists' ideals go on, even if they themselves are dead or scattered.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: The songs "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" and "Diamond Dogs" are both featured in the film's soundtrack. Fast-forward to the My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic episode "A Dog and Pony Show" in which both songs are referenced in close proximity to each other.
  • Ho Yay: Defied or lampshaded, when the Narcoleptic Argentinean admires Christian's attitude. "I like this boy..." ( Beat, the Bohemians give a weird look) "Nothing funny. I just like talent."
    • He also accidentally (?) touched Christian's crotch as he said it.
  • Little People Are Surreal: Toulouse.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Zidler makes whoremongering seem utterly glamorous. And his lies!
  • Moral Event Horizon: The audience knows from the start that the Duke isn't a nice person; it's when he tries to rape Satine after she refuses him that he loses any sympathetic edge he might have had.
    • To some, Christian crossed it at the climax when he attacks and shames Satine in front of an entire audience. Lindsay Ellis even lost all sympathy for Christian at this point. On the other hand, this is actually part of the play (you see Christian writing the scene earlier on), with Christian standing in for the unconscious Argentinean, though undoubtedly the theatre troupe is aware of the double meaning.
  • Love It or Hate It: There really seems to be no middle ground with audiences. Either it's a festive, magical experience with beautiful set pieces or it's schmaltzy dreck that does a complete disservice to modern music.
  • Narm: Some people might find Christian's hysterical sobbing/laughing when Satine dies a bit...misplaced.
  • Strangled by the Red String: Christian and Satine.
  • Tear Jerker: The Downer Ending. Christian's heartbroken, hiccuping sobs just add to it.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks: Some audience members felt this way about the chopy nature of the music. Typically, this reaction comes during the first music number when they hear Nirvana alongside Madonna.
  • True Art Is Angsty: The second half.
  • True Art Is Incomprehensible: At first played straight, then inverted. By Word of God, the reason the Bohemians couldn't get their version of "The Sound of Music" right and resorted to Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, and why Christian could get it right and wow them, was because Christian had an understanding of True Art that they did not—it was a stylistic choice. This is then continually inverted throughout the whole movie, where modern songs are used in place of the sort of music there would actually have been in 1899 Montmartre in order to help the viewer understand what it would have been like then and how those going to the Moulin Rouge would have felt (their idea of decadence and ours would not mix, but that is what it was to them), as well as to express feelings the characters otherwise could not. It's an interesting conceit, but whether it actually works or is appropriate is up to the viewer.
  • What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: If you're reading the descriptions, you know this is the biggest abysnthe trip ever filmed.
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