Moulin Rouge

BY EWAN McDONALD

(Herald rating: * * * * )

Don't try this at home, I'm tempted to write, because — even more than in Strictly Ballroom and William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet — Baz Luhrmann parlays his background in opera into exuberant excess that requires a big screen to appreciate it. Not just a big screen, either. It should ideally be seen in surroundings as exuberantly excessive as the Civic.

He takes equal parts of 19th-century opera, 1950s Hollywood musical and quick-cut music video to make a movie that's all colour and music, song and dance, spectacular production numbers, grand theatrical gestures … and not too much darned storyline getting in the way.

Nicole Kidman stars as Satine, a dancer in the famed 19th-century Paris cabaret, Moulin Rouge, who is dying of tuberculosis. The audience knows this but Christian (Ewan McGregor), the struggling writer who loves her, doesn't.

Enter Toulouse-Lautrec (John Leguizamo), who lives above Christian, by crashing through the ceiling to begin a friendship and a collaboration in a show that will spotlight Satine, as well as "truth, beauty, freedom and love". Enter, also, the nasty Duke of Worcester (Richard Roxburgh), who wants to pay for the show and for some private performances from Satine.

That's about as far as the plot goes, which isn't very far at all, but that's not what you've come to see and hear and be bowled over by.

Video rental: Today

DVD sales: Today

* DVD features: Disc 1 — audio commentary with Baz Luhrmann (director), Catherine Martin (costume designer), Donald McAlpine (cinematographer); and with Luhrmann, Craig Pierce (screenwriters); behind the scenes. Disc 2 — HBO documentary The Making Of Moulin Rouge; extended scenes; recut dance sequences; dance pre-shoots; MTV performance; music videos; Easter eggs; original theatrical trailer; interviews John "Cha-Cha" O'Connell, Caroline O'Conner (choreographers); marketing gallery; early script drafts.