The real tragedy may well be that what ever happened on Brokeback, was only ever allowed to stay on Brokeback.

Rating: 8/10 (28 May 2008)

Much nearer the end of Brokeback Mountain when a revelation occurs, someone receives it from down a telephone. We do not see the revelation, we merely hear of it like another said character does. The film does not stop what it's doing and cut to the revelation in order to show us and it does not give us that experience of the films final action within its final act. Instead of showing us, it 'informs' us of the event and then allows us to come to terms with it in our own way. For a split second, we are the character on the phone nearer the end since as soon as they first hear of it, we do and that is the cue to accept. There is no glory and there is no obvious closure, just a scene 'about' a scene and that 'less is more' phrase works so, so well in this instance.
One of many reasons Ang Lee picked up Best Director Oscar for Brokeback Mountain, I think. The film covers such a vast period of time and feels as epic as it looks and yet it probably never even expands beyond a radius of fifty miles. This is a film about a certain sort of person, living within a certain timeframe within a certain society. In decades from now people may well be labelling this as some sort of birth of the American period drama. The film absorbs its audience with a story about love and in some regards honour but also tells of the hardships and demands this (and every) society wishes upon its people. Throw in some brief nods to Freud's thinking that the film-maker's absolutely nailed; some interesting scenery; two dynamic acting performances and a narrative that is both unpredictable and unconventional and yet equally interesting and you have the ingredients for Brokeback Mountain.
Right from the very off the film announces in a covert and unsuspecting manner that it will break away from convention. This is a love story people that inhabit the world in which both Ennis (Ledger) and Jack (Gyllenhaal) would call 'unconventional' at the very nicest and the film is anything but conventional. The archetype of the cowboy is one that has been set in stone for decades; that one of hard bodied, male, masculine and upstanding. Here the cowboys and the figure of the cowboy is rendered the opposite, homosexual. The men when we first see them are tentative, shy even. The early exchanges out on the mountain are awkward and somewhat unspectacular but the director allows his film to simmer; he allows his characters to develop and get a feel for their new surroundings before they enter a new lifestyle.
Then there are the tiny details regarding both character's childhood and parents. A scene is set aside for Ennis to describe what happened to him and his parents when he was younger and I believe this lack of a father figure perhaps shaped the way his young mentality developed. Equally so, Jack's bedroom we learn was always kept like it was when he was a boy suggesting the parent's inability to move on; to develop and to ultimately let their son go Â– this can have serious repercussions on a young adults mindset. So these characters of Ennis and Jack are not mere pawns in a large, obligatory-laden and melodramatic game of chess but are indeed people written, expanded and then thought through with the question 'How did my characters get to this position in the first place?' But the film does not stop around about there. There are the others things to weigh up such as the fact both men sort of admit to one another that neither of them are, in fact, entirely homosexual. This scene comes as a bit of a surprise or perhaps it is included to make evident both men, despite what has happened, want to retain a certain 'butch' status. Maybe the writers including it says more about them as both men have respective scenes later on in their marriage where authority is stamped in a macho and 'typical' cowboy fashion: Ennis takes on and knocks down a rough looking guy at a fireworks display and Jack goes against his family in-laws in having on an American football game during dinner at the most heightened of situations.
But these scenes do not occur sporadically as random passages of violence. Indeed, no cowboy in this film is going to punch someone so hard that they'll fly through a wall. The superegos omitted by Jack and Ennis happen only when their wives and children are present and either insulted or belittled Â– it is that un-denying feeling of love and/or affection that sparks the reaction and that is something that both men cannot control when they are together much later on in the film: they cannot control their affection for one another and react accordingly, most would say 'unconventionally'. It is ironic that a film loosely about a homosexual male couple would portray women in such a negative light. Most are seductive and do not wear much with others looking for mere foot massages and a flirtatious dance while one other is shown as one that keeps talking and in an unintelligent manner. For what it is, Brokeback Mountain is an intriguing unpredictable tale set in a world that would not accept its protagonists for what they are.