Brokeback Mountain
So Prog says I should blog about this movie, and I think I should comply :3 The problem is that I started writing this post right after I watched the movie, and I must admit that the complexity of the film has left me speechless. I felt like nothing I write could do justice to what I felt while watching it, and I think I needed a few days to process my feelings. The least thing I could say is that it had left me a huge impression on me, as tragic relationships mostly do – but these two were tragic on a complete different level than your typical Romeo-and-Julia-stuff. With the “real life” they had and the ending, this story seemed much more complex to me.
This brings us to the title: I really liked the movie because I were perfectly able to relate to the characters. Considering that my parents are prejudiced against homosexuality, I am wondering why they ended up liking this movie and even telling me to watch it, when there are such explicit scenes and talking about sex. Okay, the actual scenes were minimal and the relationship was (luckily) the focus in the story, but that is even more an indication that they must have accepted their love and felt empathy for them. To me, that’s really interesting.
Therefore, I will start with the most controversial part of the story: The weird, random sex scene at the beginning. Besides that I was wondering about technical details such as how they actually knew how to do it and apparently immediately decided on who is top, it feels like in this very moment, they completely forgot about everything in their life, which is somewhat impressive but at the same time really unrealistic to me. As if gay men would always jump onto each other like that. Doesn’t that foster any prejudices? Personally, however, I thoroughly enjoyed that particular scene… maybe there is a yaoi girl sleeping in me? I also liked the scenes from “La mala educación” a lot, to be honest.
As you can imagine, I kept fangirling over Jake Gyllenhaal the whole time. I wouldn’t even say that he is outstandingly good-looking; in my opinion, he’s “only” cute. But he has these charismatic eyes and such a sweet smile. If he (or Gael Garcia Bernal) it’s somewhat difficult to keep your eyes away from them to the point that it distracts from the film…
The only thing that bugged me a little bit was how one of them went off sleeping around in Mexico basically because he couldn’t control his libido. Maybe that’s realistic for men, but it still left me with this feeling of “unnecessity”. I don’t go sleeping around because I can only have sex once or twice in a year, and I doubt that I’m inhuman or frigid, au contraire. And I believe quite a lot of singles would agree.
Now that it’s been such a long time that I watched it, it’s also interesting for me to see that I am able to remember the majority of what happened in the story, that they left such an intense impression. More than anybody, I felt sorry for Ennis’ wife who has known about their affair and suffered so greatly. I imagine it to be a much more horrible thing to have to compete against a man than a woman, really. At that point, there is nothing you can do and if you are already at a stage where you can’t just forget him, you’re done. Compared to that, Jack’s and Ennis’ long-term and desperate relationship seemed much more ‘straightforward’ and beautiful to me (if that makes any sense, I guess not).
The end actually came as a great shock – they parted after an argument, and then… If I were Ennis, I would have wanted to die.
Finally, I’m sorry for ranting so much and having such a biased and probably somewhat narrow-minded opinion, because, well, I am a sucker for desperate and complex relationships (see Jules et Jim). When this aspect of a movie is there and is so carefully executed as in Brokeback Mountain, I cannot help but just focus myself on that.
PS. Wikipedia says that Gus van Sant was interested in directing Brokeback Mountain. Now that would have been interesting.
Ahh, you liked it!! :)
I don’t know, but I personally never thought the “controversial” sex thing was too in-the-face or particularly problematic, I mean they were very, very drunk…and probably overwhelmed by the very opportunity “presented” there in the tent, so for me, it all simply added up to impulsiveness. I’d have thought the furious kissing while sober, upon their meeting after so many years, would trigger more controversy?
To me, Alma’s facial expression when she sees them kissing, was one of the most O_O moments, and Michelle William’s acting, thoughout the moments when she is being so blatantly lied to, IMO is simply great.
What impressed me most, however, was Heath Ledger’s performance. I mean, he basically brings the sparseness and grittiness of the short story to the screen, which I find awesome. The adaptation of the utterly compact literary source onto such an epic cinematic format alone merits all the praise it received, but what Heath Ledger does with the character evokes the essence of the short story even more richly and profoundly than the already brilliant input from the screenwriters, I think. (and I really adore the story, btw)
Um, yeah, I love this film. I think the fairly conventional approach to narrative did the material good; it’s exciting to think about what a “stylist” like Van Sant would have done with the story, but ultimately, I think that Ang Lee’s sensitivity with actors really contributed to some of the greater performances, and these performances are the reason why it turned out to be such a powerful movie in the end IMO…