Far from Oscar-worthy direction, which at times approaches cliché

Rating: 5/10 (6 April 2006)

Not being a great fan of Ang Lee, after his dilute-to-taste Crouching Tiger, I had to steel myself in order to approach this film impartially. I should note that I watched this film for the first time post-hype and post-Oscars.
It became almost instantly, and thereafter increasingly, clear that Lee didn't deserve the Best Director Oscar. The direction is clumsy, and often unimaginative. For the first half of the film, I felt rather detached from the two main characters, and this meant that I felt very little empathy (or even sympathy) for them in the concluding half. Clearly one of the main facets of the film is denial or disavowal, but I think Lee overplays it in his mise en scene, and his actor direction, and thereby fails to provide any emotional attachment for the audience.
His handling of homosexuality is deeply clichéd and very obviously comes from a (not just cinematic) tradition of very little understanding of, or empathy for, the subject. The sex is depicted as aggressive, even violent, which is how homosexuality has typically been portrayed by the mainstream, and this portrayal has only really ever been refuted by gay cinema itself. It was also a rather hackneyed and superficial idea to show Heath Ledger buggering his wife, as if anal sex were the exclusive territory of gay men (which, like AIDS, it definitely isn't). It is for this reason, perhaps, that Brokeback sits so comfortably with the heterosexual mainstream, in the same way that Miranda from "Sex and the City" does. I would suggest that simply exposing the mainstream to these uncomfortable subjects, if done in a familiar and predictable way, doesn't educate or provoke thought, it merely reinforces existing prejudices and gives narrow-mindedness a sheen of justification.
The supporting characters are forgettable and have unclear roles in the film, which ultimately exposes the script as being unfocused and rather thin, with the ideas being few and overstretched at feature-length.
To the film's credit, the very final scene - the final shot, in fact - is tastefully and professionally executed, and provides a genuine moment of empathy and emotiveness, although it lacks in its want of preceding scenes of emotional engagement. The cinematography is noteworthy too - it must have been a real achievement getting consistent exposures outside and in the dark scenes, and it's such a pleasure to see a film with *real* landscapes in the age of "let them CG it in in post".
Overall, Brokeback Mountain is not a bad film, and while it was a brave choice for the Oscars politically, if not a sound choice artistically, it hardly goes down as a great film. I can't imagine anyone including it in their top ten, or even top 100 films even just a year from now.