"Brokeback Mountain": Sinking in Distress

Rating: 10/10 (27 January 2006)

There are movies that you can not (or you are unwilling to) watch for the second time, not because they are bad, but because of some insurmountable psychological block- Such as "Saving Private Ryan": the expression of war is too real and too brutal; "Naturally Born Killer": desire to kill in your subconscious can be wakened; "Ring": too dark and scary; And finally the latest "Brokeback Mountain": too distressful. A romance began in the eyes of Brokeback Mountain with youth flickering amongst the running clouds and howling water, then cooled down by the trivialness of ordinary life, but ignited again by a "long over due" postcard. The Passion drowsed for years became more and more unquitabble, but eventually ended up with a sad pause along the zigzags in Brokeback Mountain. It has been difficult enough to understand why almost all of the public media had described the emotion between Jack and Ennis as "A romance beyond genders". Could it be an excuse for some of heterosexuals? After all, to accept "beyond genders" is much easier than to admit touched by the emotion between Jack and Ennis. To me, this is just the romance between too men, pure, fiery and real. Incommunicable and undeliverable Ennis was awakened with true feelings deeply in heart by the frankness and presumptuousness of Jack. Their couple-of days' annual reunion has never satisfied their desire, neither physically nor mentally. However, under that social circumstance, this "indecent" romance had no future regardless of human will. Was that really true? How many times had Jack directly or indirectly indicated a proposal to live together in a place where they were unknown, but turned down by Ennis? Ennis always had this or that reason: public pressure, the difficulties to sustain basic living, the responsibility of children's alimony, and so on. There is a spot deeply in his heart that can not be touched by Jack. Maybe the shadow branded in his heart by the witness of a gay couple's horrible death in his childhood had somewhat suggested Ennis' dependence on realistic world and the depression from the incapability of the expression of his true feeling, even in front of his lover. In the second half of the movie, there is a painful exposition of feelings: Facing Brokeback Mountain, Jack and Ennis poured out their suffering from the missing lasting for years, the desire deeply in hearts and the resentment from the misunderstanding of the other side about the realistic dilemma. I don't want to distinguish these two men with realism or romanticism. However, Being bold and straightforward, Jack has always had longings about their future, even blueprinted a perfect hermit life in Brokeback Mountain, which eventually was buried by an accident, or in another saying, buried by the elution of self ego and the desperation and compromise to the real world from Ennis. It was not only until Jack was dead, Ennis found the little secret hidden in the closet of his room in his parents' house that made him realize how deep and how real Jack'd been loving him and his love to Jack. In the last scenes of the movie, After witnessed his daughter driving away who was gonna marry her true love, Ennis opened his closet and staring the picture of Brokeback mountain with tears full in his eyes and murmuring "I swear…". But with someone's passed-away, was it really need to be the reunion in heaven that the romance lasting for more than 20 year can be continued? However, let's consider this in another way, in a puritanical country, even to the 21st century, homosexuals failed to achieve their righteous rights , what can we expected from Ennis from 20 or 30 years ago? Therefore, the memory of "Brokeback Mountain" will be kept in my mind forever. But I won't watch it again. This feeling sinking in distress is really uncomfortable. Maybe this is another kind of elution, right?