August 28, 2008: Moulin Rouge!

Moulin Rouge! is an extreme form of metafiction. It is a movie about man writing a book that is a musical about writing a musical. Most of the film follows the musical about writing the musical, but that story is narrated by the main character, Christian, who is recalling the events from a year before. His character constantly highlights the details of this complex metafiction in various ways. First, in the opening scene Christian reveals the ending to his story, and, in turn, the movie. Since the opening scene occurs a year after most of the events of Moulin Rouge! the audience has an idea as to how everything will end. To add to this, Christian himself tells the audience that his love, Satine, is dead. Before she is even introduced, the character’s fate—in the film, book, and musical—is revealed. Also, throughout the movie Christian comments on the characters and the plot, emphasizing the fact that most of the movie is actually playing out through his book. So while the plot mostly follows a musical within a musical, Christian reminds the audience that this metafiction has even more layers.