I just rewatched MR Broadway version and I´m here to ramble and scream
1st of all: I love the film, it has a special place in my heart and all that but I´ve never been into love plots (romantic ones) that much so I like it and that´s all, the special place comes from something else unrelated to what I´m trying to say
The thing is that, I don´t care about romantic plot but do you know what I care about? Platonic and familiar love and oh babe, Broadway MR hits so hard there
So, we have Satine backstory, we know a little more about her and about why the Moulin is so, so important for her. We see this family, diverse and alone and afraid of going back to the street because, even if they´re in a bad place, at least they have food, a bed and a roof over their heads.
There´s no war inside the Moulin, no that Mimi being a bitch plot, she´s a little annoying but she cares, we see her being one of the people holding Satine when she´s sick.
AND SATINE BEING SICK PLOT GOD.
She knows, she always knew. It´s not a secret kept away from her to use latter, there´s no a: Oh Satine you´re sick so sell yourself instead of running away with your lover because you´re going to die
No, she knows it and she'll rather die keeping her home together than going to the hospital. Satine is stronger, more mature.
She doesn´t want just to fly away and be an actress and leave everything behind, she wants her family to be safe. She does everything for them, not just her, them.
Her family.
A family she found in a terrible place but who loves her.
In the last song, when all the voices join her? They SING WITH HER, they support her in her choice. Satine wants love in her final moments (romantic one, we´re putting romance and platonic love in two separate trays here), she wants to die felling loved and instead of being loved just by Christian she also dies loved by her family.
They support her even if that means losing the Moulin, everything Satine did in life was for them and now, as she dies, they allow her to do something for herself. They allow Satine to put herself first, not allow, support her in the decision
I don´t cry with films or books or whatever most of the time, but when the chorus joins in Your song? It hits me every time because SHE LOOKS BACK, SHE´S SURPRISED. She didn´t expected that they supported this and they do. They want her to be happy.
This Satine is mature.
It´s always been about that, Satine matures and with a lot of weight on her shoulder's vs Christian naïve and happy and innocent getting hit by reality, going almost mad when he´s hit by it.
I see this difference pretty clearly in one of the scenes that change the most: Satine getting ready for her meeting with the Duke.
Film! Satine sings Fly away, a song about dreams and hope and get far from this place. It´s naïve, she has hope and she still wants to try.
Broadway! Satine? She sings Firework. Pressure and being tired and hopes almost dead. She´s older, she´s been doing this for so long and she´s at her limit.
And it´s always so sad, even when we already know the ending from the biggening.
When you see MR a few times you catch the foreshadowing. Not just the oh she´s going to die, you can see the clues to what is going to happen and how and it hurts.
In a way it´s a little like Orpheus and Eurydice, you know it, you see it coming and when it happens it breaks your heart.
I don´t know if someone is going to read this but well, it just hits so different from the film and wanted to share it somewhere.
PD: the final moment, when the only people in the stage are Toulose, the Duke (giving their backs to the public and in the darkness) and Christian (facing us, telling us a story and surrounded by light). The 3 men who loved Satine, but the only one in the light is the one she loved back?
And I could talk about the colors like, Satine wears white when she meets Christian and black when she meets the Duke but, I think I talked enough.
