Hype, hype, hype..

Rating: 5/10 (27 February 2006)

All over the world, the critics hailed "Brokeback Mountain" as a masterpiece. Inevitably, the public hailed it as a masterpiece too. After all, It's not the first time that the public, literally brainwashed by the hype and relentless promotion around a certain title, follows blindly. Yes, human opinion is that easy to shape.
It seems as if the Americans, or Western society in general, decided it was time for gay love stories to creep into the mainstream, but that doesn't make a good film. Remove the novelty of the gay cowboys love affair, and all that's left is a boring melodrama. Ang Lee's direction is the movie equivalent of a postcard, plastic and soulless. The film hardly says anything meaningful, it is merely the next "thoughtful" blockbuster in a series that includes "American Beauty", "Truman Show", "Schindler's List" etc.
Basically everyone concentrates on the wrong points. This is far less interesting as a love story, and far more powerful as social commentary: the 2 men follow completely different lifestyles, one is a lower-class outcast, the other becomes a middle-class professional. The former is more bound to social conventions (even though ruined by the system), the latter not so much. Essentially, they are both hypocrites and losers, and especially Ennis (who is more amoral, though a bit of an idealist).