Why can't I stop reliving this movie?

Rating: 10/10 (17 December 2005)

It's been three days now and this Brokeback Brain-flu shows no sign of letting up. I've tried watching other movies, going out with friends, reading, working, but nothing works: not unlike Jack and Ennis, I'm stuck on Brokeback Mountain. Why am I awash in an aching flood of longing? That wasn't my life at all up there on that screen--I haven't lived a life of regret and lost chances. When I was twenty, thirty two years ago, I spent a magic summer with a girl I fell in love with the second I saw her--and we've been together ever since. We're surrounded by our almost grown children, we have careers we love, we're still discovering things about each other and forging all kinds of new paths in our lives. So why the aching and the longing and the sweet-sad regret that took hold of me the second I heard the first strains of Santaolalla's awesome score and haven't yet let go? Is it that the themes of pain so powerfully explored in this great work of art go deeper than the satisfactions and achievements of any one life? Is it that the movie says something eternally true about how alone we remain no matter what arms may hold us? Looking back, the last time I walked around in a movie for days and days after seeing it was The Last Picture Show, over thirty years ago. . So maybe it's about the magic combination of Larry McMurtry and Randy Quaid. Whatever it is, this movie is now up there with The Godfather, Citizen Kane, Wild Strawberries, The Last Picture Show, etc. I was beginning to think I'd never again see a movie that I would consider calling the best movie I ever saw in my life. But I have. Thank you, Mr. Lee and Ms. Proulx.