Brokeback Mountain
Feb. 10th, 2006 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
julesjonesFinally wrote up my thoughts on the film that is the slash fan's wet dream/nightmare, depending on taste.
Brokeback Mountain is an absorbing story, and beautifully crafted, but it is not going to be to everyone's taste -- and I'm not just referring to the obvious factor of the gay love story. I enjoyed the film, but I can understand why others didn't. There's no happy ending, and you may be simply annoyed rather than saddened by one character's inability to try to find better options for himself.
For those who do enjoy it, it's a stunning and intensely emotional film, following a long-term relationship first forged during a long summer of tending a sheep herd pastured in a remote mountain area. With only each other for company, two young men develop an emotional bond that eventually leads to sex one drunken night. Jack Twist knows and accepts his own sexuality; while Ennis Del Mar has good reason to repress any desire for another man, having seen as a child the worst of what can happen to gay men in rural Wyoming. They part at the end of summer, not meeting again for four years--when they realise that their love is as strong as ever. But both are now married with children, and Ennis is still terrified of the possible consequences of exposure...
The film follows the secret relationship from their first meeting in 1963 through until the 1980s, showing their attempts to juggle their love for one another, their family responsibilities, and Jack's attempts to persuade Ennis to take the risk of coming out into the open. There are no simple answers here, and the world they live in is not portrayed in an easy black and white way. Ennis is right to fear violence, but it's also clear that the rancher who hired them to keep watch on the sheep disapproves of the relationship when he discovers it by chance but says nothinng about it, and he refuses to re-employ them in large part because they were too distracted to do their job properly.
The lead actors give superb performances, and Heath Ledger's Oscar nomination is well deserved. It's not easy to convincingly play a man as emotionally repressed as Ennis is, and Ledger does a great deal with understated acting. There are some wonderful scenes, snippets from their lives together and apart, that are gems in their own right -- one where Ennis's daughter tells him that she's getting married; another where Jack finally stands up to his bullying father-in-law, to the obvious delight of his wife. It all goes to build a picture of the world they try to survive in.
The film is very, very good, but not perfect. Some things I found problematic:
-- The pacing is very slow, to the point where I found the first half hour dragging. (Later it's slow but appropriately so.)
-- One of the characters mumbles so much that it's hard to make out what he's saying during much of the first half of the film. I can understand that this is both a realistic portrayal of many rural men, and symbolic of the character's difficulty in expressing his emotions, but it's taking things too far when it becomes impossible to follow the dialogue. I found it annoying in places.
-- The film covers a two decade period, and I didn't find the depiction of the physical ageing of one of the characters convincing.
And something that could have gone wrong, but very much didn't:
-- The sex scene. It was beautifully handled, in my opinion, being explicit enough to make it clear what was happening without being gratuitous or pornographic. And yes, it was hot; a lot hotter than some porn I've seen, because of the intense emotion. The kiss when they meet again after four years is again extremely hot, emotionally intense and there for a good structural reason. Ang Lee deftly directs these and other less explicit scenes, never being coy about the fact of the physical relationship but not being more explicit than is appropriate to any particular scene.
I have nitpicks myself, and I can understand why some of my friends and acquaintances didn't like it, but it's one of the best films I've seen for a while. If you haven't already seen it, do so, because it's worth the gamble if it does turn out to be to your taste. But take a box of tissues, because you'll need it.
Brokeback Mountain is an absorbing story, and beautifully crafted, but it is not going to be to everyone's taste -- and I'm not just referring to the obvious factor of the gay love story. I enjoyed the film, but I can understand why others didn't. There's no happy ending, and you may be simply annoyed rather than saddened by one character's inability to try to find better options for himself.
For those who do enjoy it, it's a stunning and intensely emotional film, following a long-term relationship first forged during a long summer of tending a sheep herd pastured in a remote mountain area. With only each other for company, two young men develop an emotional bond that eventually leads to sex one drunken night. Jack Twist knows and accepts his own sexuality; while Ennis Del Mar has good reason to repress any desire for another man, having seen as a child the worst of what can happen to gay men in rural Wyoming. They part at the end of summer, not meeting again for four years--when they realise that their love is as strong as ever. But both are now married with children, and Ennis is still terrified of the possible consequences of exposure...
The film follows the secret relationship from their first meeting in 1963 through until the 1980s, showing their attempts to juggle their love for one another, their family responsibilities, and Jack's attempts to persuade Ennis to take the risk of coming out into the open. There are no simple answers here, and the world they live in is not portrayed in an easy black and white way. Ennis is right to fear violence, but it's also clear that the rancher who hired them to keep watch on the sheep disapproves of the relationship when he discovers it by chance but says nothinng about it, and he refuses to re-employ them in large part because they were too distracted to do their job properly.
The lead actors give superb performances, and Heath Ledger's Oscar nomination is well deserved. It's not easy to convincingly play a man as emotionally repressed as Ennis is, and Ledger does a great deal with understated acting. There are some wonderful scenes, snippets from their lives together and apart, that are gems in their own right -- one where Ennis's daughter tells him that she's getting married; another where Jack finally stands up to his bullying father-in-law, to the obvious delight of his wife. It all goes to build a picture of the world they try to survive in.
The film is very, very good, but not perfect. Some things I found problematic:
-- The pacing is very slow, to the point where I found the first half hour dragging. (Later it's slow but appropriately so.)
-- One of the characters mumbles so much that it's hard to make out what he's saying during much of the first half of the film. I can understand that this is both a realistic portrayal of many rural men, and symbolic of the character's difficulty in expressing his emotions, but it's taking things too far when it becomes impossible to follow the dialogue. I found it annoying in places.
-- The film covers a two decade period, and I didn't find the depiction of the physical ageing of one of the characters convincing.
And something that could have gone wrong, but very much didn't:
-- The sex scene. It was beautifully handled, in my opinion, being explicit enough to make it clear what was happening without being gratuitous or pornographic. And yes, it was hot; a lot hotter than some porn I've seen, because of the intense emotion. The kiss when they meet again after four years is again extremely hot, emotionally intense and there for a good structural reason. Ang Lee deftly directs these and other less explicit scenes, never being coy about the fact of the physical relationship but not being more explicit than is appropriate to any particular scene.
I have nitpicks myself, and I can understand why some of my friends and acquaintances didn't like it, but it's one of the best films I've seen for a while. If you haven't already seen it, do so, because it's worth the gamble if it does turn out to be to your taste. But take a box of tissues, because you'll need it.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-10 07:13 am (UTC)But in the end, I realized that the precise words spoken are not that important.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-10 07:34 am (UTC)I didn't need the tissues until Willie Nelson's voice unexpectedly and pefectly came on over the end credits...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-10 11:09 am (UTC)