Harry's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN review

Ang Lee’s BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is amongst the very best movies of 2005. It is, very easily, the best romantic film of 2005. This is a tragic tale. A film about love through societal repression as well as personal repression. When one looks for love in one’s lives – we’re conditioned pretty much from birth to look for someone “like” ourselves, but not “too much like” ourselves.

Depending where in the country one is brought up or how intolerant or religious one’s parents and community is – Love is defined as that thing that happens between a man and a woman that results in a family. This film begins in 1950’s Wyoming and this is not the location where one would hatch a same-sex romance.

I found myself, as I was watching BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, counting myself lucky to live in Austin, Texas 2005. Not because the passions I have in life are forbidden, but because – no matter how I “turned” out as a human being, the community of Austin welcomes you. Here – Watching Heath Ledger in this – it’s just excruciatingly sad.

Heath is an uneducated man. Life has pretty much unloaded a crap on him his entire life. Raised by an intolerant father, who died too early. Raised by siblings that jettisoned them as soon as they could. Almost no schooling. He wasn’t raised or educated to be given the confidence to explore the options that life presents one. Was he Heterosexual before Jake’s Jack Twist came along? Not really. He wasn’t sexual at all. He assumed that his life would be like every other life he’d seen. He would move forward in the normal manner. He’d be a cowboy, he’d have a wife and kids. That’s all anyone could ask for. And then, along came Jack Twist. He couldn’t fight his feelings. Feelings he hates and doesn’t understand. He loves Jack Twist, but could never say that. He wants to live with Jack Twist, but he could never do that. Why? Fear. Fear that the world would punish him, that God would punish him, that he’d be killed for that love. The idea of moving to a community that was more accepting of that lifestyle just doesn’t dawn on him. Where would that be? He only knows the county in which he lives. The state he calls home. He’s paralyzed by fear, economy and ignorance to just pick up and start over with the only other person that makes him feel loved. Heath’s Ennis Del Mar is one of the best performances of 2005. The character and the performance are absolutely riveting. He suffers no insult and yet will allow himself no bliss. Life is hard and he’s a hard man, he likes to think.

Then there’s Jake Gyllenhaal’s character. Here is someone with a greater level of education. He knows what he wants in life, but again – he doesn’t really know how or where to live out of the closet. He knows to be careful. And perhaps the most sad thing that either of these men do, is have a family to protect their mutual “secret lives”. The idea that they wear the mask of heterosexuality. That they do the wife and kids thing – that they treat their wives with a level of disdain. Shutting themselves off emotionally from them, forcing fake smiles and half hearts. It’s so sad. Jake’s character – you get a sense feels that way about his entire family life. With Heath. He loves his daughters, but then uses them to further distance himself from the happiness he would otherwise have.

That this story is about two men – it really is the same story as ROMEO & JULIET – it’s a forbidden love story. It’s Tristen and Isolde – it goes back forever. Two people that shouldn’t love one another, but do. Two lovers that risk ruin to dare love one another.

The story is just brutally honest and brutally real. That said – Randy Quaid needs to play more scary rednecks. He really does have a bit of just pure evil behind his eyes and when somebody uses it unrestrained – in like a HILLBILLY JASON movie – it’ll scare the world.

Anne Hathaway in a cowgirl outfit is hotter than hot. If you’re going to have a heterosexual cover for your gay lifestyle guys… Cowgirl Anne Hathaway is the route to go. Yum. I also love Anna Faris in the film. This is a tragic tragic story – and those last shots… OUCH! Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography is fantastic, and the score by Gustavo Santaolalla is so evocative. One of the great films of the year.

This film fits right between THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and HUD as another story about the decaying West and the demystification of the macho American West. That Larry McMurtry is an executive producer and one of the authors of this screenplay underlines that three times. This is amongst the best cinema he’s been associated with in a career filled with exemplary work. At all times this film is human, heartfelt and earnest. Has all the intimacy of a brilliant small play, but the visual splendor that you’d expect from Montana. God that state is gorgeous.