Brokeback Mountain

While on MC at home yesterday, I decided to download Brokeback Mountain and Never Let Me Go (just because I wanted to watch it again) for a cozy little movie marathon. I've put off watching the former for too long - 6 years maybe, from back when I was in Sec 2. At the time it was released, the plot and its devices came across as foreign even in Hollywood's terms, and I believe it was barely even cleared for screening in the theaters here. All I could remember about the film then was the way my dad talked about it while we were watching the 78th Oscars. Basically he seemed apprehensive yet fascinated in the face of a film which explored risky yet uncharted (more or less) territory - a reaction which stuck with me, even as I forgot about this ~unspoken taboo~ of a film until now. Of course, thinking about it now, so much has changed such that it really isn't much of a big deal anymore. And contrary to popular (and ignorant) belief, Brokeback Mountain's by no means a 'gay cowboy movie'.

Getting to the point, yes, I watched it yesterday, and in response, I pretty much have just one word: heartbreaking. Or devastating. Your pick. And as much as I don't really trust my take on this - after all, I haven't amassed enough timeless romantic classics (yes, I HAVEN'T watched Titanic) in my history of film-going, it really is an excellent love story. What really stuck with me was this scene where Ennis learns that he can never truly be happy in life - it was a flashback to his childhood, when his dad took him to see a gay man who was beaten to death. It was really then when Ennis was taught to hate his own feelings - this haunted him into becoming the heavily guarded man he was later in life. And at the end of it all, after a loveless marriage, after raising two daughters whom he only grew more estranged from over the years, and even after his life has been compressed into a mobile home of numbing misery, he simply accepted that he was right where he was supposed to be. Because he simply couldn't express freely the only great love he ever felt, it ended up destroying and consuming him from within.

The film also portrays, loudly and clearly through the gasping silences and the many terrible expressions of grief, the power of repression. It doesn't only eat at Ennis and Jack - it affects all those around them as well, and this makes the wives the victims, too. Michelle Williams was extraordinary as Alma in the film - she so convincingly brought out the pain from realizing that she never even had a place in Ennis' heart at all. This pain of hers culminated in a desperate fit of screams, tears and shaking, which, in the end, came out empty and useless still. With that, the pang of regret was made all the more unbearable and intolerable. On the other hand, Anne Hathaway handled Lureen pretty well too, showing clearly the transformation of a lively young rodeo girl into a stiff shell of who she once was.

What really impacted me most was the deep love between Ennis and Jack, which really exceeded expectations in forming the backbone of the film. Personally, I've yet to understand love and passion so strong it could tear people apart if not let loose, but it's fine - it'd be pretty darn scary if I did. For all I know, it'd even be unrealistic in the real world. But the film really explained why it's so important for love to run wild and free in all its abundance, and to simply let love... be.

In other news, this film made me miss Heath Ledger quite badly. He really was a brilliant actor.