Fabulous film

Rating: 10/10 (26 March 2006)

I'm curious to see Crash having seen this film. I have a hard time believing it was better than this one. This film is masterfully adapted from an Annie Proulx short story. Ang Lee directs and once again impresses with his range. He has directed ancient Chinese epics (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), 1970s epic scale dramas (The Ice Storm), big-budget blockbusters (The Hulk), Civil War epics (Ride the Dragon), and British 18th century literary adaptations (Sense and Sensibility). The first film, which gained him the attention of Hollywood, was 1993's The Wedding Banquet. The ability he showed in making that film convinced execs that he could bring Sense and Sensibility to the screen in a winning and convincing manner. And he did not disappoint them. 13 years down the line, Lee continues to impress. The main attribute in allowing him to tell such a wide range of stories is a lesson that many lesser directors would do well to remember: it's about the story. And now this. Lee's ability to find the emotional center of all these stories explains his success in making films that have made money but have also retained their stories' essential integrity. It doesn't sound like particularly ground-breaking advice, and indeed, it isn't. However it always serves him well in telling a story that has a thesis, that has a point.
Most people realize at least that Lee has a mastery of his material and that he wishes to tell stories that will connect with many. This is certainly the case with Brokeback Mountain. Lee has fantastically adapted the Annie Proulx short story, focusing on a forbidden relationship between two men (Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist-played by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, respectively) over 20 years, from roughly 1961 until about 1981. The men meet and get along during a cattle drive in Wyoming, and engage in a sudden, unexpected passionate clench. They do not address the forbidden love during the remainder of the cattle drive although they continue to get along quite well. When they come down from the mountains, both try and find their ways in life, Ennis marrying a reserved local girl named Alma (the fantastic Michelle Williams) while Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal, excellent as the needier of the two men) finally marries the assertive daughter (Anne Hathaway, very good as a capable businesswoman increasingly remote from her husband) of a prominent agricultural equipment salesman. Twist meets his wife in Texas and settles there while Ennis remains in Wyoming, working intermittently as he is able. However, he and his wife live an austere life. They have two girls and although he is a good father, the family's financial insecurity increases the stress between the parents. It is several years after Ennis and Jack's original encounter that they meet again. A postcard from Twist alerting Ennis about his impending arrival is received with a jolt of excitement and their re-union ignites the connection anew. Over the next sixteen or seventeen years, the men meet with some regularity, seemingly more as time goes on. Both marriages suffer as a result. However the relationship is not fulfilling for either man. Both men consider the opportunities they might have missed and whether they should have made more of a commitment. Ennis' marriage breaks up although it is perhaps more owing to stress bought on by financial insecurity than to his affair, which his wife is aware of.
Ennis cannot form a new relationship with women which speaks to the depth of feeling he has for Jack while Jack becomes increasingly needy and shrill in condemning Ledger for refusing to make a stronger commitment to the relationship. The film chronicles with heartbreaking austerity the pain in their forbidden relationship. The relationship is not fulfilling for either man but at the same time, both derive much pleasure and satisfaction from it, which keeps it going. Lee has a mastery of the material and knows that the long- term heartbreak is more searing than occasional moments of passion. The film stays with you and the sense of regret that characterizes it has an undeniable emotional heft. The acting, in particular from Ledger and Williams, is fantastic. Both are from traditional, conventional homes and both are well-mannered. The toll that poverty takes on their marriage is rarely spoken of and when either lashes out, the words are all the more cutting for their rarity. Both are likable characters and one wishes the best for them and as one sees the toll that Ledger's infidelity and the scarcity of money has on the couple, one feels sadness as surely as one does in any film. Lee allows his actors to act and does not constrict them with manipulative aesthetic elements such as musical cues or cinematographic choices. The cinematography is sparse and simple and the music is similarly low-key. Both choices re-enforce the essential loneliness underlining the film. Fantastic film and although I have not seen Crash, I find it hard to believe that it is better than this film.