Brokeback Mountain

Film: Brokeback Mountain
Director: Ang Lee
Year: 2005
Quick Glance:
Two men in love find life tormenting without one another.
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The basic fact that this film has two of most hansom young men Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in the movie is enough to almost make me see it alone (yes, I can be shallow sometimes). But!!! The fact that this film also has beautiful scenery and a fine story isn’t something to shake your boot at either. I really enjoyed seeing the film, although it was kind of slow in parts, I think it brought up a lot of social issues.

Social issues in films and good films don’t always match up, but I think Ang Lee (who I respect for his diversity and artistry) has done well this time. The film, which focuses on two men who meet each other as young sheep herders and fall in love, goes on to chronicle how they deal with life married and spending time on “fishing” trips with each other. While the movie brings up the obvious questions of gay rights and the rights of two people being in love to be able to live with each other openly, I think it also brought up questions of bisexuality, of married gay/bisexual men, of abuse, of control and power and a whole host of other issues. It even touched on the basic question of what is love? How does love endure? Why does love endure?

The film was also very beautifully filmed in Canada (yes it was supposed to be Wyoming.) One might say that beautiful mountains are easily filmed beautifully, but I can attest that is not always true. In addition to mountains, the filmmaking and acting were well done. The story was slow, but so was the life of our characters. This was not a fast action thriller, this was a slow paced love story which moseyed on decades. If it had zipped by my eyes, it would have been an injustice to the nature of the film. Sometimes, the make-up of the two actors became a little tedious when they became older, but that was really my only complaint. Over all the film was a well done, although not perfect, piece of artwork.