A Lasting Artistic Testament

Rating: 10/10 (18 February 2006)

Much has been said about Brokeback Mountain, this long overdue movie exploring the lives and love of characters whose story has not been told before in a major motion picture.
For once the hype lives up to the film, and I'm glad both Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal have been nominated for academy awards. Their performances are equally well done--beautifully understated with an understanding of their characters and the love they share. And it is not a love based only on sex. The long absences heighten the sex, but the love is based on mutual attraction and compatibility: mutual ways of life, mutual interests, comfort in each other's company,--just as any love is based on these things.
Having read the story before I first saw the movie, I knew about the tragic ending. However, the most moving part for me was the climax when Jack tells Ennis they could have had a life together. Because of his lack of self acceptance, Ennis had long ago ruled that life out, and the regret Heath Ledger as Ennis expresses in his final scene is heartbreaking and even more moving the second time I saw the film. I've known too many like him in my own life as a gay man.
The picture is directed and filmed beautifully. The gorgeous Wyoming (Canadian) mountain scenery matches the love Jack and Ennis express there, just as Ennis's squalid apartment and trailer match the sad, alternative family life he creates in the one and the barren life his own self denial and timidity create in the other. The symbolism fits. A magnificent movie at every level, a lasting testament to all the artists involved, from Annie Proulx, Diana Ossana, Larry McMurtry, and Ang Lee to everyone else, including Rufus Wainwright, the openly gay singer on the soundtrack.
Brokeback Mountain deserves all the awards it has won and all the Academy Award nominations it has received.