Paris, 1900

Alice Pieszecki is dressed in her magical sitar costume, standing on the roof of the Moulin Rouge windmill and sings, supported by a haunting tune:

There was a girl
A very strange, enchanted girl
They say she wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was she…

Somewhere behind the gate to Montmartre, the village of sin according to the priests, is a building carrying a sign saying “L’Amour”.

And then one day

Behind the window is a dark, dirty little room littered with books, papers, old photographs. The furniture is strange and exotic, a junkyard of experiences. In the corner, a heavy iron contraption is covered in grimy bedclothes. There’s an incongruous splash of life as a brightly coloured bird hops inside its gilded cage.

Crouched in the corner is a dishevelled woman, her head in her arms, clutching a bottle. She’s wearing a white, old tank top and black suspenders. She is our heroine, Bette Porter, a young woman lost in a world of the deepest despair.

One magic day
She passed my way

Bette’s eyes slowly find her typewriter, bathing in the light the moon casts through the window.

And while we spoke of many things

The woman now stands in front of her typewriter, staring at it. She sits down and drops her head in her hands again, feeling powerless against the darkness that has come into her life. Her weary eyes stare at the blank page staring back at her.

Fools and kings

Bette puts a piece of paper in the typewriter and lays her fingertips on the clavier.

This she said to me…

Bette begins to type and watches the words being hammered into the soft, white paper, a pained expression on her face. She can barely hold her tears as she feels some kind of bitterness she has known never before fall over her.

‘The greatest thing you’ll ever learn
Is just to love…and be loved in return.’

Bette hesitates. Her attention is suddenly caught by the bird as it flaps its wings against the cage. She expels a deep breath and types.

‘The Moulin Rouge’ are the words that appear on the sheet and Bette reads the name out loud as she writes it down, her voice is full of emotion.