The Best Movie I've Seen in a L-O-N-G Time

Rating: 10/10 (31 December 2005)

Prior to writing this comment, I read over the 2006 Golden Globe nominees once again. I wanted to be honest with not only myself, but with the people reading this review that Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain" was in fact the best movie of the year. Indeed, I would be lying if I said I preferred any other movie from 2005 more.
I love film. I love the art of cinema -- the writing, the acting and the directing. Unfortunately, the Tinsletown bigwigs often produce movies that, more or else, serve the purpose of raking in our dollars and little of our "sense." I'm not going to bash any particular movie because I fully understand the hard work from every angle that it takes to make a movie. However, it is rare that such a movie as "Brokeback Mountain," with all it's aesthetic beauty, is made.
"Brokeback Mountain" is just that -- beautiful. Perhaps no other word could describe the film in a panoramic way. From Ang Lee's sharp, point-made directing to Rodrigo Prieto's mouth watering cinematography (most notably the Fourth of July scene) to the dream-like performances by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, "Brokeback Mountain" does what so many films fall short of doing: It captures the heart.
It doesn't take but a few of Heath Ledger's emotional grunts and Jake Gyllenhaal's lonely smile to be catapulted full-throttle into what this movie really is: A love story. By the films peak, I was so lost in the love story that I forgot I was watching two callused cowboys fall in love.
I did more than watch this movie; I felt it as Ennis del Mar's (Ledger) heart slowly suffocated, as if a boa constrictor were tightly wrapped around it as it painstakingly gasped to beat, as he tried with all his might to dump his love for Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal) into a storage bin somewhere far, far away. Ennis wants so badly to confess his love, but his brain and his heart move forward like trains going in opposite directions.
"Brokeback Mountain" is a movie that one sees for his or her love for the cinema, for storytelling. It is fictional, but drives home non-fiction emotion into anyone who watches it.