How, and to what extent, does Baz Luhrmann create an imaginary or fairy tale world in Moulin Rouge

Baz Luhrmann uses various techniques in Moulin Rouge to create the feeling of an imaginary or fairytale world. But, Moulin Rouge has strong roots in a real club, which is situated in Monmarte in Paris, and the club still exists to this present day.

Moulin Rouge is a romantic musical in which Baz Luhrmann subjects the audience the audience to a barrage of stylish music, dance, colour, design, human passion and above all things love. There are three main characters in film, which are caught up in the love triangle of jealousy, suspicion and passion.

Throughout the film Satine and Christian’s love for each other begins to bloom. They begin to spend more and more time together, but as they do the Duke becomes extremely jealous and very suspicious. He demands to Satine that she will spend time with him. As Satine is spending more time with the Duke, the tables turn and Christian starts to become jealous.

A fairy tale is a story of magical happenings. Objects and people that appear in fairy tales are not normal, they are farfetched, and these are creatures that some one has created.

Characteristics of a fairy tale are things like magical creatures, dwarves, fairies, and other surreal belongings. Moulin Rouge reveals a lot of these characteristics of a fairy tale throughout the film. There are obvious things like the man in the moon, dwarves like Toulouse Latrec and there’s a green fairy. But there are more detailed things like all the colours, lights, sound, dancing and all of the singing.

All these features suggests that there are signs of it being a fairy tale, but to keep this film from being a fairy tale Baz Lurhmann adds drunken behaviour, sexual references, and how people actually lived in Paris at that particular time.

A fairy tale often has a desire of love, and always ends up with the two people who are involved together being together at the end and living happy ever after. Moulin Rouge follows the fantasy of love throughout the film. Satine and Christian meet and it doesn’t take them long before they fall in love. Baz Lurhmann tries to keep things to a reality and not a full-blown fairy tale he gives it a twist. When Satine and Christian’s love is announced, everyone tries their hardest to let them be together, but they don’t live happy ever after because Satine dies.

Satine’s death makes their relationship end, so they don’t live happy ever after, this makes it the strongest part that keeps it real because no one ever lives happy ever after, they will have arguments and have their bad days and so did Christian’s and Satin’s.

The Moulin Rouge is where the rich and powerful can live out their extraordinary fantasies. The Moulin Rouge is a magical place where anything could happen. This takes it to the point of it being a fairy tale.

Not everything within the Moulin Rouge is good. It is full of wicked men who are there to see the women seduce themselves in front of them. Some of the dancers, including Satine are whores. Some people may consider this to be an act of the devil. This type of behaviour and sexual references you would never expect to see in a fairy tale.

In every fairy tale there is always a good guy, a bad guy and a damsel in distress. In Moulin Rouge the good gut is Christian. He was a penniless writer and believed in four things. Truth, beauty, freedom and above all things love. He comes across as this perfect man, even though he has no money he has everything else.

The bad gut is the Duke. He is a rich and powerful man who has invested his money into the Moulin Rouge. He is trying to buy Satine, but that is all he has to offer. And the damsel in distress is Satine. She is a whore who doesn’t believe in love until she meets Christian. She wants to be rescued from the Moulin Rouge by Christian.

In many fairy tales the damsel in distress normally has no parents. Satine does not have any parents, but in a sort of way she has wicked Godparents. Although Ziddler and his wife took Satine in, gave her a place to live and a glamorous job, they both knew she was dieing and still made her dance every night and sleep with various different men to make them money. If they were good, loving Godparents they would not have let this happen to her. This is very fairy tale like because the damsel in distress has an evil Godmother.

Christian and Satine sing the song “come what may”. This is a way of getting Christian’s poetry to Satine. It also, when they sign it, reminds them of their love that will last forever. A lot of the Fairy tales have music in them. The two lovers, or someone singing to them, will always sing a particular song to remind them of each other and this is what happened in Moulin Rouge.

Baz Luhrmann tries to make the audience feel as if they are in the Moulin Rouge. The technique he uses to do this is with the camera. When the showgirls are performing, the camera will spin through the audience. This gives us the feeling of dizziness and makes us feel as if we are there.

I think that this is a very good technique because it keeps us watching because we think we are there and it’s like it’s giving us the experience of been there in amongst the crowd.

Baz Luhrmann is symbolising all of these things to go to an extent of it being a fairy tale. But, he also symbolises other things like colour, and the actual Moulin Rouge its self.

The three main colours in Moulin Rouge are red, blue, and white. These are the colours of the French flag, but they represent much more that that. The red appears in the Moulin Rouge, on the walls and the whole room has a tint of red to it. This represents love, danger, the devil and it gives off a danger warning. Furthermore Satine’s hair, lips and clothes are all red. This shows that she does have love and passion within her, but she’s a whore and shows lust and the presence of the devil.

At the end of the film Satine appears in a white dress. She now believes in love and she’s trying to purify her self. The white represents purity, innocence and true love.

What’s more Christian and Satine’s eyes are blue. This represents the sadness they have. Blue is associated with cold. When it is cold it makes you feel unhappy unlike when it is warm and you are happy. In a way the weather determines our mood, and the blue for cold, tells us that their eyes are unhappy. This reflects on Satine because she is unhappy in what she is doing, she doesn’t believe in love till she meets Christian, grew up with no parents, and to top it off she is dieing. This makes her feel unhappy and unwanted. There is nothing good in her life besides a glamorous job.

When the camera comes out of the devil possessed Moulin Rouge, and goes it over Paris. When you get a camera shot of Paris it has a tint of blue to it. It is tinted blue to show that Paris is not affected by the devil and not in the underworld of darkness.

At the beginning Satine is sat on a swing above the ravenous audience. The song she begins to sing is “diamonds are a girls best friend” she is called “the sparkling diamond” as they show beauty and glamour.

Also, In Satine’s boudoir the Duke gives Satine a diamond necklace. This shows Satine that the Duke is a rich and powerful man, and can afford to gives things like diamonds away.

Christian is living in this old, falling apart building and the one thing he most believes in is love. On the side of his building is the word l’amour. This is the French word for love. Is this just a coincidence, or is it meant to be there for a reason?

The colours in Satine’s boudoir also represent her raunchy character and are very strong to. In this emotional turbulence a hint of real life lurks in the left over Christian’s broken heart.

Near the end the Duke threatens to have Christian murdered. While he is saying this there is an almighty storm brewing up outside. The storm represents death and danger. When something bad happens in a fairy tale a storm often occurs to show the evil are at work or planning something evil.

When Satine and Christian admit their true love for each other fireworks go off. Also at the end when they reconfirm their love the fireworks go off again. This represents passion and excitement.

Although Baz Luhrmann takes it the film to an extent of it being a fairytale, he also includes many characteristics of a fairy tale into account and adds these in. he uses these wisely and puts them into the correct places to make the movie be like a fairy tale. I think he does this very effectively and extremely well. He is a great director and does his work exceptionally well.

He uses a real place, in a real country to give the viewers the feeling that it is real. He uses familiar songs to make it real, but amongst the reality he alters it so it is like a fairy tale. Moulin Rouge is a real cub but he exaggerated it to his version, he also did the same with Monmarte. Despite the fact that he uses all these ingenious ways of making it unreal, he adds certain features into the film to keep it real.

Baz Luhrmann uses various techniques in Moulin Rouge to create the feeling of an imaginary or fairy tale world, but he also keeps it real and in my eyes it is this that makes the film work so well.

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