"Brokeback" not all it's cracked up to be

Rating: 4/10 (24 January 2006)

I was one of those people anxiously awaiting this film that has been critically lauded since before it's release. I listened with great anticipation as people in various internet/news/magazine forums raved about how important and inspirational this film was. It won SAG awards, Golden Globes, Director's Guild Awards, and is the front runner for this years Best Picture Oscar. Finally, I saw "Brokeback Mountain."
Now, it's time to be honest, to cut right into the bone and leave the meat for the industry hype machines. What was supposed to be one of the most profound love stories of our time was everything but. The pacing was so proposterously slow that I nearly fell asleep in the first hour. Sometimes, 15 minutes of screen time would pass with only three words of dialog. The atmosphere Ang lee set up is unmistakably his signature, sweeing mountains, mists in the forests, the feeling of remoteness. Intentional, I'm certain. While the performances in this film were stellar, it boils down to this; The story was benign. Truly the most vacant story I've seen in years. Far to quiet to maintain any true cinematic value, with the exception of the aforementioned cinematography. The powerful love story hailed worldwide is actually not at all absorbing, but makes you feel more sympathetic to the women in their lives that they are uniformly deceiving. The focus was not at all on the male protagonists, but how they adapted to mundane lives away from Brokeback Mountain...
I expected to be moved beyond measure, in fact, I was bored, emotionally detached, even a little depressed by the ending, which was so anticlimactic that it failed to serve any real emotional impact except the traditional "awww..."
I believe now, after experiencing "Brokeback Mountain" that this IS an important film only in that it spotlights the very real repression many gays suffer with even today. If homosexuality were not the centerpiece of this film, it would never have been made specifically because of the dry, dull nature of it. "Brokeback" should be regarded as a statement film. Thats what it set out to do, and thats what it has accomplished, much in the same way "Schindler's List" (a far better film) portrayed the Jewish tragedies during the Holocaust. Because of these statements alone we celebrate like these.. In Brokeback's case-not because they are exempliry of cinematic greatness, but because they encourage a progressive mentality, and promote a little more social understanding.