long, lonesome blues

Strike another off my movie list. Originally intended to post this yesterday since it will go well with the theme of ‘love’ eventhough I am no fan of valentines day. It’s been sitting in draft mode for so long because I haven’t really decided if i’ve included enough synonyms for ‘loneliness’ in it. But on with the show…
I got my grubby little hands on a copy of Brokeback Mountain this past weekend. Watching the movie I’m reminded of another Ang Lee’s masterpiece, The Ice Storm. There’s not going to be any intellectual insight here about Brokeback; just my rambling about what an interesting, misunderstood movie it is.

Brokeback Mountain, like all other movies that I celebrate for their ability to show great depth in characters, is a bloody good movie. It’s so much more than just a gay cowboy movie, I keep thinking for the last few days. It is a story about the human condition (with apologies to M. Kobayashi) – a vague term but how else can i explain all that is explored in this movie.

Sure, Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger snog all but a handful of times in total. Yet the spit exchange especially in the scene when Jack Twist shows up at Ennis Del Mar’s door after they have been apart for four years, are stunningly intense. At this point in the movie, you’re not supposed to be thinking, “Oooh, hahaha, it’s Heath and Jake kissing, hahaha,” but rather, “Oh, they’ve missed each other so much. I know exactly how they feel.”

These emotions come off as even more raw when you’ve got location settings in some of the most desolate, remote places you could imagine living in. The stark cinematography helps too, sure. But just the idea of being in Wyoming in the 1960′s leaves you feeling lonely, don’t it?

Heath Ledger could very well run off with the Oscar; his Ennis Del Mar is a sad, sad cowboy. You can hardly tell if he’s talking when he drawls out short, clipped sentences. Doesn’t say much, nor feel much. He is so emotionally-repressed that he doesn’t know how to cry. Instead, the sadness manifests as physical illness; he looked like he was going to hurl when he and Jack Twist had to part ways after that first summer so Ennis can do the right thing – get married to his gal, Alma.

Then came the lies, the kind told and the kind lived. The sad way in which these lies can ruin not just the man but everyone around him. And really, that’s the story of Brokeback Mountain – living in denial of truth usually fucks it all up. Ennis refused to stray from society’s norm to spend his life with the one person he really loved. Though, this being 1960′s, 70′s and 80′s… who can really blame him. Yet he continued to see Jack and go on ‘fishing trips’ or high-altitude fucks as Twist calls it. He ruins his marriage to Alma by being emotionally unavailable. He toys with Jack’s hopes and dreams; Jack really thought that one day he would come to his senses but Ennis just can’t bear the thought of what the world could do to him if he shacked up with another dude.

There is really little salvation in Brokeback Mountain. Ennis Del Mar is still lonely in the end. His life is as incomplete as the last sentence he utters before the credits roll.

If you’re thinking of giving this movie a chance, and i strongly urge you to, realise that when you feel while you watch this movie as if it’s looking into a mirror, you may not necessarily be looking at an image of you but of humanity. Ron Weasley doesn’t believe that someone can feel all these kinds of emotions and I am inclined to agree with him eventhough it means I’m on level with a teaspoon in terms of emotional range. Sometimes we relate to movies not because we see ourselves in the situation but because it is a vicarious resonance of human’s ability to desire, to love, to suffer, to survive and to move on.