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They're in Paris, and it's the summer of 1940. The Germans wear gray, Ilsa wears blue, and the whole world is falling to pieces around them. But it makes no difference: they're in love, the piano plays softly behind them, and they'll run away from all the madness together and live happily ever after. But something happens, Ilsa can't make it to the train station... and there Rick stands, with a comical look on his face because his insides have been kicked out.
It's not a wound he'll ever recover from, but it's much easier to attempt to forget, to pretend to move on, than to actually think about her. It's too painful, and it's too pointless. Better to just be aside, detached from the world, drinking, smoking, ignoring.
But fate brings Ilsa back to him, the soft piano with the familiar song reappears, and it stirs up feelings that had been long put away. However, she's not alone: she brings a husband and the load of a cause worth dying for. Two options appear before Rick: stick his neck out for nobody or fight for the world. And Rick was always a hero underneath.
Was it ever really an option to be happy, to keep love? Probably not: the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. But they will always have Paris... and we'll always have Casablanca.
In my entire life, there have been very few scenes that have captivated me at the level of Moulin Rouge!'s El Tango de Roxanne. I'd always found this quality, this certain power surrounding it I couldn't quite describe...After what must be about the thirtieth viewing, I think I finally put my finger on it - passion. Burning, wild, hurtful, complicated and wonderfully heartfelt passion.
Not often have I been transmitted this sort of feeling by a movie scene... right now, only Marlon Brando in his endless regret and frightened moment of weakness comes to mind - that wet, ravaging Stanley Kowalski crying for his wife at the bottom of a staircase in - what else? - A Streetcar Named Desire.
Of course, the passion in Rouge is the complete opposite to that of Streetcar. While the latter is, as Blanche herself so accurately puts it "desire, just brutal desire", El Tango de Roxanne, as the entire film does, sends so many beautiful images of missed chances and lost love, presented so bluntly and with such deliciously dark cinematography...
It's both terrifying and wonderful to see all these characters fall into a hopeless stage of doom as the film enters its final and darkest act: the very one-dimensional (up to that point) Argentinean, bleeding from [unfilmed] love wounds, hurts the cold and unromantic Nini in an attempt to gather some sort of response from her, only managing to gather all eyes on the courtesan; a heartbroken, desperate Christian cries to a woman that must deceive him to save him; Satine loses her self control and tears apart a most well-thought plan to keep her love and her stardom - and even the despicably possessive Duke burns in jealousy as he finally understands, too late for the doomed couple, that undying love is more powerful than all the diamonds in the world.Beauty, Freedom, Truth and Love - is there anything else worth all the trouble in life?
They're in Paris, and it's the summer of 1940. The Germans wear gray, Ilsa wears blue, and the whole world is falling to pieces around them. But it makes no difference: they're in love, the piano plays softly behind them, and they'll run away from all the madness together and live happily ever after. But something happens, Ilsa can't make it to the train station... and there Rick stands, with a comical look on his face because his insides have been kicked out.
It's not a wound he'll ever recover from, but it's much easier to attempt to forget, to pretend to move on, than to actually think about her. It's too painful, and it's too pointless. Better to just be aside, detached from the world, drinking, smoking, ignoring.
