Best Film, with a power unlike any other

Rating: 10/10 (3 February 2006)

I could not have imagined that a little 30 page short story by a writer I'd never heard of could reach that deep inside me and stir emotions I'd thought I'd left behind. Annie Proulx's "Brokeback Mountain" is so spare, so clean, and so brutal in its unflinching look at the lives of these two men that is hardly seems filmable. For years, that deterred people, until a brilliant team of screenwriters, director and actors made the most perfect film adaptation I've seen.
The film is a small miracle - a gay film that isn't about gay men, a love story about men unable to love, a tragedy that rests on a mythically perfect time and place that we can never recover. Why would I feel so strongly about a film that doesn't depict my life - I'm out, I've been in a relationship for 15 years, I have supportive family, friends, and coworkers. I have the prospects Ennis and Jack lacked, I have the freedom they dreamed of, and yet... I'm obsessed with this story.
For one thing, I see affection between men - real intimacy, not the usual movie romance that rings so false. I see LOVE between men who are just trying to get through life, figure out their feelings, make things work. I see, and I think the heterosexual world FINALLY sees, that love is what matters, that life holds the same challenges for all of us. How many people hear Jack's dream "Listen. I'm thinking, tell you what, if you and me had a little ranch together, little cow and calf operation, your horses, it'd be some sweet life" and think, "Hey, that's my dream too."
Read the original story before or after you see the film - they are both equal masterpieces of storytelling, character, and emotional power.