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Slowly hunting

Brokeback Mountain, film

Posted in Arts and culture on Monday, February 27, 2006

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You know when something haunts you. It slowly gets into you, it enters every crevice, it occupies your thoughts to the point where you hear yourself whispering to your subconscious; unless you can physically grasp it and throw it out of you, it will stay as part of your being. In the unlikely event that you have no idea what I'm talking about, go and see Brokeback Mountain and you will have a chance to feel this.

It is the kind of movie that will make you dream about the possibilities of love, and pray that you'll have one in your life as profound as the one depicted here. It is about the choices you make and how you negotiate life based on those choices—it is a tale of what happens when you find someone who you fall inexplicably and irrevocably in love with, and then cannot express that love—this is why the story resonates. It is universal—a yearning for love and acceptance. And when that love and acceptance are not truly realized, it makes Ennis and Jack’s journey desperately sad.

Ang Lee employs the crisp, majestic mountainous terrain as a vivid third character in an ill fated love triangle: Jack, Ennis and the isolation, desperation and unstoppable force of nature itself. There's a point in the movie where you will forget that this story is about two cowboys in love, and ache over the sense of hopefulness and hopelessness of two people in love. Heath Ledger gives a reach-under-your-skin-and-sear-your-soul driven performance. Jake Gyllenhaal's dreamy eyes stamp the film with yet another haunting image.

The sheep that the men tend to are herded in large flocks, one indistinguishable from the next. The creatures live their lives mindlessly grazing and following the pack. The metaphor is not lost here, not for a moment: Jack and Ennis are, of course, outside of the "pack". And lone sheep are prey to hungry wolves, which is a fear that weighs loads when making choices and meditating about loneliness and missed opportunity.
This film will stay with you, in your thoughts and conversation, as if you'd been a voyeur in someone else's life, touching you in a hidden-core you may dare not think about, much less discuss.


Brokeback Mountain showtimes

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