Moulin Rouge! musical nominated for Best Picture in 10 years, following Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" (1991). In BBC's 2016 poll of the greatest films since 2000, "Moulin Rouge!" ranked 53rd. In the year 1900, a British writer named Christian (Ewan McGregor), suffering from depression, begins writing on his typewriter ("Nature Boy"). As Christian narrates, the film flashes back to one year earlier upon Christian's move to the Montmartre district of Paris to become a writer among members of the area's Bohemian movement. He soon discovers that his neighbours are a loose troupe of performers led by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (John Leguizamo).
The Excursions of Mr. Brouček to the Moon and to the 15th Century prelude dissolves into the opening scene, which begins with the bickering of Málinka and Mazal set to a waltz. A fantastic example of a waltz as a parody is the Child Prodigy's singing of the moon anthem, which actually is a spoof of the Czech national song. The “audience” within the opera hears it as a serious patriotic anthem, while the opera house audience perceives it as a parody anthem. Janáček uses the music of a waltz at the end of the first dream to break the tension of the moon population's threats against Brouček and help resolve the plot.