Must-watch, possibly one of the few examples of a perfect film

Rating: 10/10 (21 February 2012)

In 1963, two young men meet at the titular mountain, where they have to take care of a farmer's sheep. They soon fall for each other(and whether you're open to it or not, I think it'd be hard to make the case that they aren't sweet together, and the intimacy they share is endearing), and this follows them over decades(and a sedate pacing, not to be confused with this being boring, helps convey that this is an entire life) as they try to balance this necessarily secret, forbidden love(and it becomes one of the best stories about such; it didn't "need" to be about two males, but I'm glad it is, now it's there to refer to), as well as conform and raise straight families. The power and the beauty of the emotion is conveyed. This is remarkably effective, engaging from the first frame(frankly, I can't think of a detail to this I'd change), it made me laugh, at one point I cheered, and I very nearly cried more than once. The two leads are the idealistic Jack(Gyllenhaal) who is comfortable with himself, and the pragmatic Ennis(Ledger) who can't accept his nature(and is conflicted and aggressive because of it... hey, opposites attract), and their relationship(among that of them with their parents and families, old and new alike) is the main focus, but all of the characters are credible, well-rounded, and several of them, quite charming. No one is a "villain" in this. The rigidity of the society is a negative, but the romance is not presented as without problems. It is not the fault of the women in their lives, the ones they marry or father... and the performances of Hathaway, Williams and Cardellini live up to these nuanced roles. In fact, all of the acting is phenomenal. If anyone wasn't brilliant, it would be some of the children, and... they're kids! Heck, most of them even go for the Southern accent, and do well at it. Anna Faris, of all people, was good in this, in what's practically a cameo! This is impeccably filmed and edited. The grit and harshness of life in the rustic environment(even so recently) is gone into, and this is rather realistic. There is a bit of overt(if not all graphic) sexuality(homo and hetero), disturbing content and strong language, and a little nudity(frontal female, and brief full frontal male) and bloody violence in this. The DVD comes with the well-done documentaries Sharing The Story: Making of(21 minutes), Script to Screen(11 minutes), Directing From the Heart: Ang Lee(7 and a half minutes), the featurette On Being a Cowboy(6 minutes), which I will review on its individual page here on the site, and a trailer for each of the following: Mrs. Henderson Presents, Gasolin', Romance and Cigarettes and My Date With Drew. I recommend this wholeheartedly to everyone mature enough for it. 10/10