The most beautiful Film ever made

Rating: 10/10 (28 April 2011)

I have never cried in a film before. I have become weak in films before, but never have i actually been brought to tears. This film managed to do it on four separate occasions.
I found this movie on TV late one night and decided to watch it not knowing what to expect. It killed me inside. It haunted me. There was not a moment for the next week when i did not think about this film. It drew me into the complexity of Jack and Ennis' romance and the shear beauty and sadness of their relationship and it still hasn't let me go two months later.
The way in which Jack and Ennis express their love shattered me. The pure passion mixed with aggression, doubt, confusion and sadness drained me. So a huge thumbs up to Jake G and Heath L for outstanding performances.
The story is simple, but complex. Two straight men are sent off into the mountains where they are intended to managed herds of sheep and whilst there a romance forms between them.
FIRSTLY let me start off by saying this is not a feel good gay romance story. In fact the purpose of the film is not even to comment on homosexuality. The film uses the romance that forms between Jack and Ennis to express the sublimity of love. And it did it flawlessly. The film explains that love knows no sex or boundaries, that it is a force that emerges without warning.
Honestly, Titanic could learn something from this film. I only cried because it was so devastating to see how madly in love Jack and Ennis were with each other, and yet society forbid their romance. Okay so maybe the film does make a comment about homosexuality, but the side that no-one ever sees really. It explores the possibility of same sex relationships that ensue without warning, and how it entraps the two in a truly saddening relationship.
The camera work is beautiful and so is the soundtrack particularly in the opening scene. However, there was one technical fault as such, where the rule known as the "180 degree line" was "broken" and Jack and Ennis were walking away from each other and due to the camera work it looked like they were walking the same way.
Okay so the part you've hopefully been waiting for... the parts when i cried. Basically i cried at the parts when the true nature of their relationship was revealed e.g. when they made out passionately but almost frustratedly after not having seen each other for four years and when Ennis said (in the most amazing line i've ever heard) "I wish I could quit you." And of course when the most horrible thing in th history of film ever happens which i can't put in this review because it needs to be experienced.
If you take the time to dive further into the film, you realise just how sad the story is. The fact that they have to live false lives for twenty years because of what society says made me both depressed and enraged. The fact that they still maintained their relationship through the years even though it was evident that both were unhappy and needed each other hurt me on the inside.
This film hit far too close to home for me. It expresses love in the most true and devastatingly beautiful way imaginably. No other artistic piece describes love the way this film does. It doesn't matter if you are gay or straight, the movie isn't about gay people, it's about expressing the most complex part of the human condition through a relationship between two straight men in love.
It destroys me to think that there are people in the world whom are secretly in love and oppressed because of the one emotion that no person to date understands. And believe you me, this film would have been nothing had it been between two straight people. The movie was as powerful as it was because of the fact that it was between to men.
Thank the lord for this film. It is breathtaking. It will linger with you for days after watching it. This is something every person needs to experience. One of the best films i have ever seen, and by far the most powerful and beautiful film i will possibly ever see.