Brokeback Mountain Review

Bottom-Line:  In the final analysis Brokeback Mountain is a stunning and provocative film and could not have been made and released at a more divisive time in American cultural history. 

Let me preface this review by stating that watching two men make out makes me, well, squeamish, but that does not make me homophobic, I am anything but, but it does make me 100% heterosexual.  There is no wiggle room in my sexual preference library; I am squarely a man who enjoys the opposite sex.  I am convinced that the same cannot be said for most men, who have questions, consciously or unconsciously, about their sexual preference.

So, given my queasiness I hesitated for some time before I agreed to go see Brokeback Mountain, the once obscure Independent film that is now rolling off the lips of almost every American, from the Bible Belt to the mist covers shores of Seattle.  And not only is the movie on the lips and minds of Americans, but it is reflected in their eyes as million of Americans who are flocking to the theaters to see this touching, gripping, and ultimately tragic love story.   

Story-Line

Directed by the now world renowned Ang Lee (Eat Drink Man Woman, Sense and Sensibility, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) Brokeback Mountain is the story of two lovers who through time and circumstance find it difficult to be together.  Instead, they steal time together once a neither year under the guise of going fishing, though no fish are caught, nor line sees water.  The two men, cowboys of the old western mold, first meet in 1963 in Wyoming when they are hired to graze a herd of sheep in the grasslands of Brokeback Mountain. 

The men, Ennis Del Mar portrayed by Heath Ledger (The Patriot, A Knight's Tale, Monster' Ball), and Jack Twist portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal (October Sky, The Good Girl, Jarhead) were strangers before their exile to Brokeback, but by the end of the summer they would know each other physically and intimately.  They, in short, fall madly and deeply in love with each other and that love spans a lifetime.

My Viewpoint      

Gyllenhaal's character Jack is the more self-assured of the two men.  He is less ambiguous about who he is and what his sexual needs are.  He is perfectly willing to take a chance in a largely homophobic West and openly live with Ennis, who is hesitant because he has seen the results of blind and senseless hatred against homosexuals.  Jack pursues Ennis as any man in love would pursue someone he loves intensely.  And it's not as if Ennis was an unwilling participant in the tryst; his love was just as intense as Jack's though more careful, but his anger at not being able to be with Jack was always sweltering just below the surface of his persona. 

Brokeback Mountain teaches the American public once again that hatred trained at homosexuals, destroys lives and families and in the end harms our society far more than acceptance of their way of life. 

Ang Lee does a masterful job of subtly depicting the physical aspects of the men's relationship; most of the sexual situations between the two principles were shoot with dim lighting which made watching two men make love much easier to watch.  And speaking of the principles, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal do a masterful job in their portrayal of the gay men.

Michelle Williams was given a far meatier role than Anne Hathaway, though both actresses turned in a great performance.  The chemistry between Ledger and Williams was palpable, helped along by their status as a real married couple.  Gyllenhaal and Hathaway were given far too little time together on screen to judge their chemical connection.

In the final analysis Brokeback Mountain is a stunning and provocative film and could not have been made and released at a more divisive time in American cultural history.  At a time when Gays and Lesbians are under increasing attack for their lifestyle at all levels of society, Brokeback Mountain illustrates that love been to people of the same sex can be just a meaningful and enriching as love between two people of the opposite sex.  And education that dispels ignorance is never a bad thing.