Brilliant, Haunting, Enduring Classic

Rating: 10/10 (13 May 2006)

Twenty years hence no one will remember - let alone remember fondly - the juvenile tantrum of 'Crash'; but twenty years hence people will remember, and still more people will for the first time see and hear and be profoundly moved by, 'Brokeback Mountain.' In every way 'Brokeback' is a superior film; in every way it dwarfs all the other films of 2005; it's a brilliant achievement in timeless, enduring cinematic storytelling possessed of all the classical complexity and power of love tragically denied and self-denied and, ultimately, it ends with the beginning, the hope, of love redeemed.
Ennis Del Mar - Ennis of the Sea - evolves, he changes for the better, he emerges, he moves from the inchoate, turgid soup of the sea to plant his feet on terra firma whence his love finds its roots and begins to branch out, to embrace his daughter's love for him and for her betrothed, and his love for them. Ennis holds onto, and the rest of his life's heartbeats depend from, the tragic talisman of his bloodied shirt, because it is his passport - and this enduring film's timeless, classical metaphor for tragedy - to the sublime which, in Jack's and his life, was not to be theirs.
In twenty years time people will still be moved by, and they will continue to ache from and to love, 'Brokeback Mountain.'