Brokeback Mountain
Written by Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana
Directed by Ang Lee
Focus Features
2005
Rating:


"Brokeback Mountain" is as revolutionary a western as "The Searchers," "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," "Hud," "The Wild Bunch" and "Unforgiven." Whereas those films worked to deromanticize the cowboy mythos, transforming the white-hat heroes of old into flawed men, Ang Lee's film explores the homosocial bond of cowboys and the sexual passion that can be sparked between them.

Though the western genre is being deromanticized, "Brokeback Mountain" is actually a heartbreaking romance to be ranked alongside "Remains of the Day" and "In the Mood for Love." As in those films, the social constrictions of a repressed culture work toward preventing the characters from having their love requited.

The culture here is 1963 Wyoming. Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) meet when they're given a job to herd and watch over sheep on Brokeback Mountain. One night, fueled by whiskey and a desire to keep warm, Jack and Ennis give into a spontaneous moment of urgent carnality.

Ennis and Jack are called back early from Brokeback and the two go their separate ways. Ennis is so affected by having to say goodbye to Jack that he can't say anything, but he throws up and punches the wall in an alley. Ennis returns to his girlfriend Alma (Michelle Williams) and quickly becomes the father of two daughters. Jack rejoins the rodeo circuit and meets rider Lureen (Anne Hathaway), a sexual woman with a rich father.

The men seem satisfied in their married life until Jack pays a visit to Ennis for the first time in four years. Ennis and Jack's reunion is one of the film's most potent moments, a wordless scene that communicates more about the men than they could possibly speak. Ennis spends all day waiting for Jack, and when he finally arrives, Ennis runs downstairs to meet him, pulling him into a passionate embrace. Alma sees this from the window in the kitchen, and her face reveals a woman whose world has been destroyed.

Over the next 20 years, Ennis and Jack continue to sporadically meet on Brokeback Mountain, though not frequently enough to satisfy Jack. Ennis is worried about getting caught, having seen what happens to gay men in Wyoming. "If you can't fix it," Ennis says, "you might as well stand it." But Ennis can barely stand it himself. Through Ledger's remarkable performance, Ennis is a man of silent rage. His repression causes him to lash out with violence whenever provoked, and his passionless marriage can only end in divorce.

Lee treats the love between Ennis and Jack gently and with restraint. There isn't much physical passion after that first time on Brokeback; to show more would be to undermine the fact that these two men aren't allowed to be together.

The real tragedy of "Brokeback Mountain" is that, though the oppressive conservative culture of Wyoming would make it difficult for Ennis and Jack to maintain their love in public, they could have tried. In the film's final scene, as one of the men touches a bloody shirt and mutters to himself about his failure to love enough, the heart breaks.

Posted Thursday, January 12, 2006

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/film/brokeback.mountain