`Moulin Rouge' builds a cult following

ANDY SEILER, USA TODAY

Originally published Saturday, January 19, 2002

Some moviegoers can't get enough ``Rouge.''

``The first time I saw ``Moulin Rouge'', it was a little overwhelming,'' says David Hurt, 31, of La Habra, Calif. ``The second and third time, it really cleared up who was who and what they were doing. After that, I could savor it, getting lost in the movie, the songs and the story.''

Hurt eventually went to the movies 20 times to see Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor strut their stuff. Recent video viewings take his total to 22.

``Oh-la-la''!

``Rouge,'' Baz Luhrmann's frenzied and intensely stylized tale of the famous French nightclub, which uses rock songs and kinetic cutting to convey 1899 Paris, has polarized critics. While the National Board of Review named it best film of 2001, and it has tied with ``A Beautiful Mind'' for six Golden Globe nominations, many critics derided it as unwatchable.

Time magazine critic Richard Corliss declared ``Rouge'' the second best movie of the year (after ``Kandahar''), calling it ``an orgasmic swirl of color, design and pop music,'' but on the facing page, fellow movie critic Richard Schickel declared it the year's worst film. ``This movie,'' he wrote, ``made my tortured viscera beg for mercy.'' (USA TODAY's Mike Clark gave ``Rouge'' one-and-a-half stars out of four.)

But when asked the timeless question ``voulez-vous couchez avec moi?'' fans of ``Rouge'' say ``oui'' again and again and again. TV talk-show host Rosie O'Donnell, for example, has watched her DVD copy at least 20 times.

``There are very few movies that reward seeing them many times, that have the richness of texture and sound and the visual spectacle and whimsy,'' says Steve Reed, 42, a Los Angeles computer consultant. He has seen the movie 17 times in a theater and is swiftly approaching his 1983 record, 23 trips to see Barbra Streisand in ``Yentl.''

``There are visual wonders in every single part of the screen that you may have missed before,'' says repeat moviegoer John Young, 17, of Mission Viejo, Calif., who now owns the DVD.

Luhrmann himself has encountered the'' Rouge'' addiction internationally.

``I travel around the world constantly, and it's very common,'' says the Australian filmmaker, whose previous films were ``Strictly Ballroom'' and ``William Shakespeare's Romeo+Juliet.''

The movie is designed to be seen several times, he says. ``A woman came up to me at one recent screening and said, `I've only seen it 20 times, but my sister has seen it 40 times,' '' Luhrmann says. ``That worried even me.''

Once a viewer sees the film more than a few times, however, it is no longer his creation, Luhrmann believes. ``It's between them and the film. It gets much more personal as it goes on. It's like a prayer, almost.''

The people who have the toughest time with ``Rouge'' are those who love old-fashioned Hollywood musicals but know little about current Indian musicals, which influenced the film, says the director. He compares it to some classic rock fans' reaction to rap.

``Everything in 'Moulin Rouge' is the opposite of naturalism,'' says Luhrmann, whose next project is a Broadway production of Puccini's opera ``La Boheme.'' ``If people sign on for that, they're hooked on it for life.''

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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