Baz Luhrmann’s Red Curtain Trilogy

With awe-inspiring soundtracks and in-depth reading of famous plays, the filmmaker uses his uniquely colourful perspective to combine drama with cinema

William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996) is the only movie that I watched twice back-to-back. After getting my eyeballs singed at the matinee show, I rushed back to the box office for another fix of this delirious, psychotropic dream.

The second movie of Australian director, Baz Luhrmann’s Red Curtain Trilogy, following his debut feature, Strictly Ballroom (1992), Romeo + Juliet featured Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes as the young hearts running free.

Using original Shakespearean dialogue, the movie was set in the modern day with the feuding Montagues and Capulets being powerful crime families. Fair Verona is Verona Beach where the second generation perpetuate their parents’ vendetta.

The prologue from the play is in the form of a newscaster and as she speaks of a pair of star-crossed lovers springing forth from the fatal loins of two foes, images of violence flash on the screen behind her. While Romeo’s first look set to the dreamy background score of Radiohead’s "Talk Show Host" is exemplary, it is Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt’s (John Leguizamo) introduction that gets all the claps and whistles.

In the gas station as the Montague and Capulet boys bait each other, there is a shot of a cigarillo being lit, the match falling to the ground, a heel with a sparkly shiny spur, and the camera panning to the Prince of Cats, Tybalt. Dressed in a red waistcoat with the Sacred Heart printed on it, and two guns, Tybalt squints menacingly to say “I hate peace”.

And we are off again, a breathless scene as Juliet’s mum (Diane Venora) gets ready for the ball all the while telling Juliet that the very eligible Paris (Paul Rudd) wishes to marry her. Romeo crashes the party on ecstasy with best friend Mercutio, (Harold Perrineau) sees and falls in love with Juliet and the tragedy is set in motion.

The fact that the 59-year-old auteur does an in-depth reading of Shakespeare through a heady cocktail of drugs, sex, rock and roll, and religion makes the film the perfect introduction to the Bard. With Romeo + Juliet, Luhrmann drags the Bard out of dusty tomes and trips the light fantastic with him — in iambic pentameter no less. The homoerotic subtext of Mercutio’s relationship with Romeo and the concept of time, for instance, are given raucous life.