'Brokeback' is an amazing journey

Rating: 10/10 (26 March 2006)

This is an amazing achievement - not just by Ang Lee, but also by Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway, and all the rest of the cast - not to mention the exceptional cinematography and the breathtaking natural landscape of 'Brokeback'. Ang Lee has created as near-perfect a movie as I'm ever likely to see. The two lead actors deserve our deepest gratitude for their courage in taking on this most difficult of acting tasks, and for carrying it through with such skill and subtlety and grace. 'Brokeback' takes you on an amazing journey. I'm a heterosexual male, and I always have and always will feel uncomfortable about male-male sex, because I suppose I'm programmed to be that way. But Lee, Ledger and Gyllenhaal take you through that discomfort and lead you to where we should all be - understanding the need of all people for love, of whatever kind, and sympathizing with all who suffer torment and abuse and loss in this quest. Above all 'Brokeback' is about love - mostly about homosexual love, but also about love between men and women and fathers and their children. In confronting the matter of how communities deal with homosexuality, it brings the issue in from the cold, bringing it into a place that is familiar to and belongs to us all. It is, at the end of it all, no more and no less than a great love story.