Moulin Rouge is a great Rorschach test. Where one person sees exuberance and talent, another might see excess and hubris. Some see a pseudo-MTV mess, full of jump cuts and in-jokes for the rave crowd. Others see vigorous excitement from a young director full of love for his craft and its history and with enough ability to make magic.

In my other career, writing about wine and food, we often draw the distinction between two types of restaurants. One will serve small, exquisitely perfect morsels meant for the Apollonian side of your psyche. The other provides a feast of Dionysian proportions, covering hither to thither and not being too concerned about bloat. Beginning food writers frequently mistake the Apollonian for the finer experience. It’s subtler, so it has to be better, right? Truth is, quality is rarely arbitrated by quantity. There are great and poor feasts, good and bad bouche d'amusements. The same goes for movies. The fact that Moulin Rouge is a glutton’s feast of a film does not in any way detract from its significance. This is great movie making.

The plot is as convoluted as a grand opera, one that vacillates between farce and tragedy. Christian (Ewan McGregor) has come to the erotic and alluring land of Paris during the "summer of love," 1899. There he meets Toulouse-Lautrec (John Leguizamo) and his cohorts who are intent on putting on a play to be called Spectacular Spectacular. Toulouse-Lautrec feels they need a star and has set his sights on Satine (Nicole Kidman). Her manager, Zidler (Jim Broadbent), wants to do it, but he needs money, so he enlists the Duke (Richard Roxburgh) for funds. Through mistaken identity, Satine believes Christian is the Duke. For Christian, it is love at first sight. Satine only melts when Christian sings Elton John’s "Your Song." The dilemma arrives when the Duke refuses to invest in the play without having Satine between his sheets. Christian is jealously against it; Zidler is for it. Satine is torn between her desire to be a star and her love for Christian. At the same time, unbeknownst to Satine (though revealed near the beginning to the audience), she is dying from consumption. If it all sounds a little like Puccini’s La Bohème, remember Luhrmann’s first movie was a filmed stage performance of that opera.

While the story is clearly from the world of grand opera, what places it firmly in the present is the music. It is composed and arranged by Craig Armstrong, an incredible musician who always seems to be operating under the radar. Best known for his arranging work with Massive Attack, Madonna, Blue Nile, U2, and Bjork, he also released one of my favorite albums of the 1990s, The Space Between Us. If you haven’t yet seen Moulin Rouge, the trick that Armstrong and Luhrmann use is to take popular songs, run them through a Cuisinart, and then paste them all back together. For example, in just one love scene (chapter 14), the most beautiful scene in the movie, McGregor and Kidman go through the Beatles’ "All You Need Is Love", Kiss’s "I Was Made For Lovin You", Phil Collins’ "One More Night", U2’s "Pride (In The Name of Love)", Thelma Houston’s "Don’t Leave Me This Way", Paul McCartney and Wings’s "Silly Love Songs", Jennifer Warnes and Joe Cocker’s "Up Where We Belong", David Bowie’s "Heroes", Dolly Parton’s "I Will Always Love You", and Elton John’s "Your Song", all in 4 minutes and 14 seconds.

The crowning glory of Moulin Rouge is its awe-inspiring visual impact. It is a dizzying, surreal, psychedelic roller-coaster ride. The colors (beautifully reproduced on the 20th Century Fox DVD) are remarkable, especially the abundant reds. Remember that rouge is French for red, and Luhrmann took it literally. You will see more ravishing examples of red in this film than you ever imagined, from Nicole Kidman’s hair to the stage curtain that Luhrmann uses so symbolically throughout the film. You’ll also see some of the most original computer-graphics work in any film to date. But while the casual observer might feel like they are watching MTV on steroids, if you look closer, you will see the influence of a diverse crew of directors ranging from silent-film director Georges Méliès (Le Voyage Dans La Lune) to Bob Fosse (All That Jazz, Cabaret).

The DVD is a total success. Colors and clarity are superb. The sound is clear as rainwater with lots of enthralling material in the surrounds. Chapter 30 has an explosion that will knock your subwoofer off its supports. Two commentary tracks give you detailed info that is much better than the usual coffee-klatch drivel. Then we get 10 Easter Eggs (hidden features within the DVD menu), documentaries about the design, writing, choreography and music, multi-angle remixes of dance routines, rehearsals, interviews, cut scenes, marketing materials, you name it. Instead of giving us multiple successive versions, each a little more expensive, Luhrmann and company have given us the whole kit and caboodle right up front. Why? He felt the job Columbia did on the Lawrence of Arabia DVD was a manifesto to the industry. After seeing it, he felt that the medium of DVD could reinvigorate our love of movies. He has committed his resources from here on to take us "behind the red curtain." I can’t wait for his other films, Strictly Ballroom and Romeo and Juliet, to get the treatment.