Powerful Story of Living in the Closet

Rating: Null/10 (27 April 2007)

I can see the flaws in this movie as well as the virtues. I don't think the love story between Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger is particularly tender, the scoped sweep of the years is at times much too fast. So, how come the movie haunts me for weeks each time I see it? Well, I think the final scenes which revolve around closets (literally), and symbolize the internalized homophobia and shame that Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) has felt all through these years, show why his love for Jack Twist (Gyllenhall) can never be tender nor continuing (as opposed to just sporadic.) It also explains why the brilliant Ang Lee shows us the those shirts in Ennis' closet and the picture postcard of the beautiful Brokeback Mountain, and then contrasts Ennis' dismal house trailer and the flat , dull view of the countryside from his bedroom window. Such is life in the closet-- the only life some gay men are allowed by many in the rather flat society as a whole. I love this brilliant, bleak masterpiece.