MOVIE ~ Brokeback Mountain (2005) 4.5 out of a rating of 5
We saw Brokeback Mountain awhile back and I didn’t bother to review it as I felt everyone’s reaction would be pretty positive. In its simplest form it is a love story, more correctly a ‘forbidden’ love story between two cowboys. When I talked to people about this movie I realized there was a large group of people that didn't really like it. The two criticisms I heard most often were: the relationship between Ennis and Jack was just not convincing and secondly what was the big deal with Heath Ledger’s acting? For me personally, the story was very real and completely believable and as for Heath Ledger’s understated acting, I felt it was dead on.

I think perhaps people are seeing this movie through current eyes, instead of from the past. Remember these are two cowboys living in Wyoming and Texas between 1963 to the early 80s. Being gay in that place or that time was not acceptable. You were mocked, ostracized or worse killed (as Jack was in the end) and so these two men carried their love and secret enclosed tightly within. At the beginning of the movie there is a critical scene where Ennis reveals a childhood memory to Jack about two older men in his town that were shacked up together. One day they were found beaten to death. Ennis explains how his dad made sure he saw the bodies and even says, ‘for all I know he did it.’ This fearful memory is something Ennis has carried inside him and as a result finds his love for Jack difficult to deal with.

How could this story not seem authentic? Ennis and Jack's lifelong anguish is carefully concealed (except when they are together) but obvious to those that truly know them. They love each other but aren't allowed to, so they move on, get married and have children as society dictates. But neither man’s thoughts are ever far from the other, which is witnessed in the passionate kiss that occurs after a four year separation. Going through the steps of an accepted lifestyle, they only seem to be truly happy when they are together on their ‘fishing trips.’

It's not an easy movie to watch but at the end you find yourself wondering where the time went. Brokeback is the quiet observance of human character through words and silences, as two men stumble through life limited by the standards and judgements of others. Enni's has always understood this and his quiet nature and cautiousness is a direct result of the world he lives in. How could a cowboy be anything else?