Prostitute? You mean courtesan!

I finally saw "Moulin Rouge", and sort of understood why everyone was (and probably still is) obsessed with it.
Sort of.
The first part of the movie sucks.
It's a blur of crappy camera work, modern music (Nirvana? Really?), and crotch shots.
And John Leguizamo.
After listening to him whine as a semi-retarded sloth and a wannbe drag queen, I never want to see him in another movie ever again.
And yet, there he was, in all his mystical, drug-addicted, midgety glory.
Then Nicole Kidman was rolling around on the floor, pretending to have an orgasm, while Ewan McGregor decided to make the situation better by singing.
But it got a lot better.
Well, after they slogged through a ridiculous performance of "Like A Virgin".
"El Tango de Roxanne" was brilliant, with all the interwoven songs, and Christian's angst, and the Argentinian giving Sting a run for his money. The choreography was great, and the way the Duke shamed Satine was tragic, inevitable, and hard to watch, but also beautiful, in a sick way.
Zidler was hard to figure out. At first, he's sort of a bumbling, stupid pimp, then he's this selfish idiot, but he really cares for Satine and he somewhat selfishly decides not to tell her that she's dying until he needs some really good blackmail, but still loves and wants her happy, even though he knows real life won't let her be.
"The Show Must Go On" killed me. It was really hopeless and all these bohemians, prostitutes, actors, etc., who act as though their jobs and lifestyles are everything, really having nothing to live for and see life as this bleak, pointless thing, but that's how it must be and the show must go on.
One of the other dancers (courtesans, whatever), Chocolat, was my favorite. He saved Satine from being raped, and, throughout the movie, he understood everything she was going through. She fell in love, but of course couldn't afford to; it wasn't part of the job. She became sick with TB; the show must go on. She had to sleep with the Duke in order to finance the show and further her career; it's all part of the job. Through everything, he understood and "The Show Must Go On" also applied to him, because, really, what did he have to live for?
It made me wonder if he was one of the "disgusting" far out of the closet gays back in the day who was so despised that he had to go "underground" to Montmartre and the Moulin Rouge, yet had to sleep with the same people who hated him in order to make a living.
Sad stuff.
My mom compared it a lot to "Rent", because it borrowed themes from "La Boheme", but it also talked about immoral people from "the other side" who take a page from Ecclesiastes and proclaimed everything in life meaningless.
But I felt that "Rent"'s ending had some hope. Mimi had a near-death experience, but survived. She and her group of friends now needed each other more than ever and continued to live in the moment until their last breaths, thankful that they could live just a little bit longer.
"Moulin Rouge" had no hope. Satine dies, leaving the show (and Christian) without a leading lady. Christian chronicles their tale, a year later, and says that their love will last forever, but it doesn't sound as though he believes it, and, seeing as TB was SUPER contagious, he will most likely contract it and die pretty soon anyway. How depressing is that?
But yeah, great movie. Not perfect, but really good.
Emotionally traumatizing, orgasms and all.
Now if only I could figure out which soundtrack to buy.
Surely not both?