Jaan-E-Mann

I remember the first time I saw Moulin Rouge very well. It was the very night it came out on DVD. Not a good night for Oliver, who was single-digit-months-old at the time; I watched the whole movie on foot walking back and forth across the room because he refused to be laid down until well after midnight. I also saw all of The Mummy on foot walking back and forth with a single-digit-months-old Aidan, but it was at a drive-in, so I couldn't even hear it. Which is fun in it's own way, but we gave up and went home five minutes into The Matrix. You kinda have to hear that one. But I digress, I was reminiscing about Moulin Rouge. Hot, sticky night. Cranky baby. Husband in the "I'm in indulging you watching this with you. I'd rather be watching the Discovery Channel" mode.

Then the line came up. "Suddenly an unconscious Argentinean fell through my roof. He was quickly joined by a dwarf dressed as a nun." I turned to my husband and said "This is the best movie ever." And that line is in the first five minutes of the movie, before any of the musical numbers. But I already knew. And yes, I re-watched it a lot in the following weeks, so much so that Aidan, not quite 4 at the time, took to singing "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" when we were shopping at Target.

I really hoped that more musicals would follow. I love old musicals, but I crave the new. Sadly, that never happened. Unless you count "Once More With Feeling", the musical Buffy episode, which I've also rewatched about a million times (I'm counting it).

I've finally found a movie that not only is a musical but has the same kind of surreal, silly, whatever humor that lends itself to lines like "Suddenly an unconscious Argentinean fell through my roof. He was quickly joined by a dwarf dressed as a nun." It's almost metafiction: the characters in it are well aware that they are in a musical. The back of the set morphs into a huge stage with colored lights, and the MC tells his uncle it would be easier just to show him his flashback than to explain everything. And the present day characters walk in and out of flashbacks, look at younger versions of themselves. When two of them are about to sing the cabinet in the living room rattles until they open the doors and let the band out so they can set up, because you can't sing without a band. And dancing girls. And dwarves in brightly colored costumes.

Now, this is a Bollywood movie, so this means 1) it's in Hindi (although you'd be surprised how many English loan words and slang phrases are used in Hindi films) and 2) it's three hours long. I had to watch it in two segments because I just don't have 3 hours of TV time all lined up like that. The first half, which is very much a Cyrano de Bergerac story with the cool guy helping the mega-geek score with the woman he's adored since college, had me laughing my ass off (all alone; my husband didn't watch this one. It's possible he's Bollywooded out, so we've been watching the BBC episodes of the The Office together). The second half nearly had me sobbing (of course with all this extra stress I've been carrying around lately, that doesn't take much. But it's nice to have the release. And watching The Office, about a company where everyone may or may not be about to lose their jobs, helps as well).

The director does so many cool things with digital effects, the angles of the camera; it's a gorgeous movie just to look at. It has a little Singing in the Rain homage. It has an Irish step dance complete with bagpipes (in a Bollywood movie - so cool). It's also written incredibly well. It circles around the same events from the past, but everytime it revisits them, it adds a layer that changes the context from the last time you saw it. Then there is a huge reveal which was such a complete surprise. It made me appreciate how cool it is to see a movie I've never read reviews of, or seen trailers for, or heard people talking about. I haven't felt that level of surprise since the first time I saw The Sixth Sense.

(I've not just been watching movies, honest! I wrote a short story in two days, which is tremendously productive since it's a school week. I hope to have it all nice and polished by tomorrow for my critique group to have at it with the mallets and hacksaws. I might have to settle for semi-polished. I think it came out pretty well though, so we'll see.)