Hollywood teaches us to love again in the New Year...

Rating: 9/10 (20 January 2006)

December is a lover's month, or at least it's recognized in Hollywood like that. A slough of cinematic romances flood your local megaplex and art-house alike, ranging from the delightful treacly comedy (The Family Stone, Rumor Has It) to lavish period pieces (Casanova, Tristan & Isolde)...not to mention the obligatory ape-meets-girl blockbuster (King Kong).
And then, there's Brokeback Mountain, a shining example of the duality between the progressive contemporary love story and the tale as old as time. Forbidden love has been at the center of the film romance since the birth of the medium. The previously mentioned Tristan & Isolde bases its marketing off of it. But what makes "Brokeback" different is its ability to make its audience care about every character's struggle. Unlike "Isolde", in which King Mark, the man Isolde is promised to, becomes an antagonist, or even the most famous forbidden love story of all, Romeo & Juliet, where the suitor Paris is written as one-dimensional, the wives and families of the men in "Brokeback" carry just as much complexity and vulnerability as its protagonists.
The ability to bring such complex characters to life is not only the doing of director Ang Lee, but of the actors as well. Almost every emotion is registered through the eyes; in one glance you can read a mind or see a heart breaking. As the brooding cowboy Ennis Del Mar, Heath Ledger says little, but can create many different emotions at once and layer on the subtext through his facial expressions...he has certainly come a long way since his serenade of Julia Stiles in The 10 Things I Hate About You. While Ledger has received the most critical acclaim for his role, Jake Gyllenhaal's impassioned portrayal of the wide-eyed rodeo kid Jack Twist is not to be overlooked. The women in the film give stunning performances, each with their own distinctions and complexities, particularly Michelle Williams as Ennis's heartbroken wife, Alma.
In addition to its raw passion and heartbreak, "Brokeback" is an aesthetic masterpiece, with sweeping scenes of the Wyoming mountain ranges that can even transform a herd of sheep into a flowing current. While the pacing is slow and deliberate through most of the film, the fast-paced editing during the rawer, graphic scenes adds to the heart-pounding sense that this is not a Hollywood love story, but raw, tragic reality.
Brokeback Mountain's tagline is "Love Is a Force of Nature", and the natural wonders seen in the background as Jack and Ennis slowly fall for each other prove that love is just that...a natural wonder.