Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain is a difficult film to watch, for a number of reasons. For some, there may be a singular reason,
for others there might be a number of them. There'll be fleeting ability for many to fully connect to the characters, while
for some there'll be an all-too-real connection. It might be with one of the leads, or with one of the more than half-dozen
other characters that the film studies, but find that connection and Brokeback Mountain will become a wrenching, yet
inspiringly uplifting example of effective and emotive storytelling. It's such a powerfully layered story, that even if the
key of experience doesn't unlock everything within, Ang Lee's story is told so well, that apathy or insensitivity for its
message is near impossible.
At a little over two hours, Brokeback Mountain isn't by any measure a long film, yet at the end don't be surprised
if it feels like half a lifetime has passed. If boredom were the product of a limited mind then we wouldn't be queuing
to catch Brokeback Mountain. The film takes it's time to establish its setting and characters, but it's a measured
introduction and done with space enough for posterity. Spanning some 20 years, you could believe that every minute of Ennis
and Jack's story that was lucky enough to make it onto the screen was anguished over, included only after its purpose
was justified and justified again, with so much more excluded for the sake of running time. I suppose that should be the
story with every film, but with this one the descriptions feels approriate.
It's primarily a story about love. It's a true love, but one that's not fully understood - by either those who possess it
or those around it - and one that due to its situation is resigned to never properly flourish they way it should have. Like
a seedling that's managed to find it's beginnings in the most unfortunate of places, limited to a barren existence of
wanting on a windy, desolate clifface. It'll watch and fail to understand why those who began life in the valley below grow
into tall, proud masters of the forest, yet it'll never know that kind existence. It's a love that will try it's best,
always searching for a deeper foothold, but it began life in a place that's just too hostile and unforgiving for something
it believes just doesn't belong.
The acting chops of both Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are on an unquestionable show of triumph in Brokeback
Mountain. How simple it would have been to minimalise these characters to mere stereotypes. To say that any given gay
character we've seen on TV or in film over the last decade has been liable to reflect at least some form of mainstream
society's perceptions of what is the usual setting or behavioural model is for gay people is an understatement. There may be
a cardboard element or two reflected in Jack or Ennis, something you've seen before in an on-screen gay character somewhere
else, but sometimes there's a truth to it that just sticks. But neither the actor nor the story allows what are essentially
tonally appropriate clichés to overshadow what's most important. There's a sense of realism with these two men, who
together possess a deep, never-ending love.
Whether or not it's plainly acknowledged, the love is there for Jack and Ennis. But it comes with a curse. Prejudices are
fostered everywhere, but some environments are harsh. The reality is, there's a cruel conditioning in many places that
hinders and often prevents what would otherwise take place. A relationship born in such a setting is always hard and rarely
announces itself to both parties without the ying of denial weighing on the yang of feelings for another man. And so the
battle for fulfillment begins. If it had of been another time or another place, things could have been very different, but
Brokeback Mountain isn't the desperate side-story for political correctness where the two fags that look at each
other goofy-eyed at the end while the headlining straight leads declare their love as the credits role. There's no sign of
manufactured schmaltz.
The story follows the destruction that 20 years of heartache brings in trying to keep their limited relationship alive.
Jack and Ennis aren't the only two damaged from the slow, painful result. It's a love that particularly Ennis struggles to
understand how to foster, or doesn't know if he should, with that uncertainty having a far wider effect. As is expected of
any man, Jack and Ennis marry a lady each and have kids. Ennis' wife Alma, played by a magnificently tortured Michelle
Williams, is a victim of something she should never have been a part of, and wouldn't have been were it fair world. She
discovers a truth that breaks her heart. It's something she can't reason with or understand and which slowly consumes her,
an undying hurt that lives for years.
Too painful to consciously acknowledge anything out of the ordinary is Jack's wife Lureen, played by Anne Hathaway. A free
spirit when she and Jack meet, it would normally have been a postcard life. While Alma's perception of the situation means
she just might have a second chance for happiness, Lureen's complete denial turns her existence into something of a wedded
hell. A woman whose joyless and bitter life contracts by the day. She probably doesn't want to touch the pieces of the
puzzle, and even if she were able to pick them up, she'd never place the finished product in view for others to see.
Perhaps even she believes her final explanation.
Brokeback Mountain's characters are delivered with a hurtful sense of reality. Some things are easy to talk about,
to share with those we love, and others aren't. Sometimes an inability to do what you should can have a life-long effect,
and we see those effects here. Brokeback Mountain chooses to end on an impressively sincere and fulfilling note,
a pitch-perfect resolution to a story of loss, love, happiness and pain. As one of the most superbly examined relationship
stories of our time, it's weight and effect seems to have been designed for reflection's purpose, something to think about
afterwards, rather than made to draw that huge emotional reaction out of you while you're watching it. A story understated
enough that it might be a day or two afterwards when the real gravity of its message and that emotional punch hits you.
out of ten
Reviewed by Paul Boschen
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