Sunday, May 14, 2006
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Celebrated as the “gay cowboy” movie that was rumoured to have almost swept the Oscars, Ang Lee’s adaptation of the short story by famed Canadian writer, E. Annie Proulx, is one of those few films in Hollywood that manages to stir up controversy – the last of note being 2004's The Passion of the Christ/Fahrenheit 9/11 duo. Whatever praise and condemnation fell upon Mel Gibson’s and Michael Moore's films is revisited upon Ang Lee’s film in a completely different respect. Brokeback Mountain is not a tale of political or religious debate, but one of romance and human rights. Can two men who fall in love be treated with dignity and without persecution by a community, or must they live their lives as shams, turning their backs on what their hearts desire? While certainly proving to serve as a stable platform for heated deliberation, Brokeback Mountain disappoints as a film.Starring Heath Ledger as Ennis Del Mar and Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack Twist, this film takes place in Texas and Wyoming in 1963, where the two men take up jobs as sheep-herders for one summer and enjoy a sexual relationship that neither expected. Following that year, both separate and start up families, full-well knowing of a void in their everyday lives. As the film progresses, the two meet up secretly and wonder whether to renew their past relationship and whether that would be possible at all. The premise is a good one, and moreso due to the difficulties of fulfilling a gay relationship in the 1960s, but the execution fails to live up to the premise. While Ennis’ story of the gay man who was killed for his ‘sins’ is a shocking reminder of the possible fate that could await them, the only fate for viewers is one of tedium. The slow pace mimics that of a previous Ang Lee film, The Ice Storm, but never manages to hold the viewer’s attention with substantial character development or conflicts to move the film along.
In the end, Brokeback Mountain has served its purpose as an excuse for Hollywood to pat itself on the back in spear-heading the liberal movement in the United States. What should have been considered a decent ‘day in the life’ story of two gay men in the 1960s was blown out of proportion by the modern-day political disputes regarding equal rights for gay partners. The movie never reaches the social impact of To Kill a Mockingbird, Inherit the Wind or even The Passion of the Christ, because it fails to display the insurmountable odds that gay men must have undergone in the 1960s. Instead, the close-mouthed character of Ennis just broods about from Texas to Wyoming in a trance. The purpose of Brokeback Mountain was as enigmatic as Ennis; was it to show prejudice in the face of love? If the purpose of the film was not to
set out such a message (as examples were few), but instead to create a romantic drama starring a gay couple, then it fails to keep up with the plethora of excellent romance/tragedy films already available. It is not a bad movie, but it certainly is not the eye-opener it could have been.# posted by Andres Canella : 5:28 PM
