Brokeback Review

My review on Brokeback Mountain, the movie. :) It is all my own opinions of course, and you're free to form your own. That's the thing about opinions, everybody has one.

The story itself by Annie Proulx sucked. I'm not much a fan of Proulx, and Shipping News? it sucked too. Okay, that's harsh, but I'm just not a fan of her writing, her plots' are good, no doubt, but her writing style is too curt and blunt for my liking.

But the movie was good. It injected colour and character where there was none in the book. The book is as dry as any love story could be, the movie brought it all to life. The script writers kept to the main spirit of the book, which is something you don't see much of.

Anyhow, 3 out of 4 of them main characters were awesome. Anne Hathaway (Lureen New-something) was the weakest link. To be fair, her character's complexities is something that's much harder to portray than Michelle William's (Alma Beers). Alma's character is straight to your face, the knowledge of Ennis and Jack, and yet having to live with Ennis. Having to watch him go on them fishin' trips coupla times a year without being able to do nothing. Her sterling moment was when she saw them kiss right outside her trailer/house.

Lureen was a more complex character, being that she and Jack fell in love with each other and yet they didn't. I suppose it's that there're many ways to love someone, and they love each other no doubt, but they probably mistook their love to be the passionate love one has for their spouse. Also, the fact that she got preggers helped them to decide to get hitched. :) The way Anne portrayed Lureen, it was almost as though she was 2 dimensional, the last phonecall Ennis made to her redeemed her :) The call showed she loved Jack, and because of it, she was able to be somewhat civil to Ennis and yet probably part of her blamed Ennis for Jack. I don't think that there's doubt she doesn't know what Ennis is to Jack, seeing as how open Jack is, and seeing how she knew that Brokeback Mountain was Jack's favourite place. I think her feelings towards Ennis was very conflicted, and it showed in the phonecall with Ennis.

Anyhooooow to the main actors now :)

Heath Ledger (Ennis del Mar) was awesome. You can see it by the number of nominations he's got (and the movie too!). :) Although Heath Ledger seriously has some issues with his sexuality, if you ask me. You only keep asserting your heterosexuality when you're concerned with something. I mean, look at Gale Harold, the actor who acts as Brian Kinney in Queer as Folk, he gets so much ass (and mouths lol) in QaF it's almost scary, but he doesn't assert his heterosexuality in next to every interview he gets.

anyways, back to Ennis. Ennis and Jack are essentially two men whose lives are destroyed by the inability to accept them as they are. (I dont think it's an exaggeration, look at LaShawn's husband, the heavily bearded guy who exchanged meaningful glances and more with Jack? he was probably killed too) Society's inability to accept them, Ennis's inability to come to terms with his sexuality eventually drove them to their "deaths". For Jack it's a more literal death, but Ennis's death is more of the spiritual kind. It's like every moment he lives and each time he meets Jack for one of their fishing trips, a little more of him dies, and everything else dies when he learns of Jack's passing.

Jack being the more open of the two, is able to speak more freely and live thusly as well. His heartache comes from what Ennis was unknowingly (at first) doing them.

He said, "It could be like this, just like this, always." After their 4-year reunion. Only to have his subtle offer refused by Ennis's fear of the tire iron (or society's homophobia). It isn't really Ennis's fault, not really, it was largely his dad's fault for showing him what happened to those 2 old ranchers when he was but 9 years old. And that fear kept with him after all those years, making him unable to love Jack the way Jack needed him to love him. Causing Jack to seek affection and love in any other way he could find it.

Jack driving down to Mexico for solicitation worked for me, cause it was his way of being spiteful on Ennis after Ennis sent him false hopes and then dashed them. But in actuality, Ennis himself didn't know what he was doing, he is pretty much a simple person and didn't read too much into his actions, nor knew what his actions could do to Jack. And when he had a choice, he chose the only one he knew, the one that was ingrained in him, the one lesson his father made sure he remembered. And that's the story of their life in my opinion. Ennis unknowingly destroying bits of Jack, and Jack intentionally destroying bits of their relationship.

It was a love that was doomed before it began.

The movie's most explosive moment occured during their confrontation when Ennis told Jack he couldn't see him til August. I shall quote it for you:


Ennis Del Mar: I'm gonna tell you this one time, Jack fuckin' Twist, an' I ain't foolin'. What I don't know - all them things I don't know - could get you killed if I come to know them. I mean it.
Jack Twist: Yeah well try this one, and I'll say it just once!
Ennis Del Mar: Go ahead!
Jack Twist: Tell you what, we coulda had a good life together! Fuckin' real good life! Had us a place of our own. But you didn't want it, Ennis! So what we got now is Brokeback Mountain! Everything's built on that! That's all we got, boy, fuckin' all. So I hope you know that, even if you don't never know the rest! You count the damn few times we have been together in nearly twenty years and you measure the short fucking leash you keep me on - and then you ask me about Mexico and tell me you'll kill me for needing somethin' I don't hardly never get. You have no idea how bad it gets! I'm not you... I can't make it on a coupla high-altitude fucks once or twice a year! You are too much for me Ennis, you son of a whoreson bitch! I wish I knew how to quit you.
Ennis Del Mar: [crying] Well, why don't you? Why don't you just let me be? It's because of you that I'm like this! I ain't got nothing... I ain't nowhere... Get the fuck off me! I can't stand being like this no more, Jack.


We see Ennis's possessiveness over Jack, telling he'd kill him if he were to ever know that Jack went to Mexico for some hot ass. Wives/girlfriends are fine enough, but no other men in their fucked up relationship. And that both Ennis and Jack don't know how to quit each other, wanting to because being together like this hurts way too much, not knowing how else to deal with it, and being unable to leave each other. Because no matter how bad it gets, being without each other would be worse.

And the most important thing we see here is that Jack assumes that because Ennis doesn't love him the way he wants him to love him, Ennis doesn't love him or want him as much as he loves and wants Ennis. But that's not true, because Ennis loves Jack somethin' fierce, but maybe it's the way he was brought up, that he just doesn't know how to express it the way Jack wants him to.

I can draw parallels with QaF when Justin leaves Brian for Ethan for honeyed words and everything else he wanted. The only difference was that he realised that Ethan gave him the things he thought he wanted, but not what he really needed. And that Brian loved him better. (I have doubts that Ethan ever loved Justin at all lol) But in BBM, Jack moved in with LaShawn's husband (or ex-husband) and never had the chance to know that Ennis loved him so damned much.

I think that if R&J was the love story of centuries, then BBM has to be the gay love story of the decade at least. It reflects so much of what is in this world right now, not just for any one couple, but for society at large. If the world was willing to accept homosexuality, then men in denial wouldn't be ruining lives of women like Alma, Lureen and Cassie (this girl Ennis dated for a bit).

Of course I'm talking about a utopia here. I mean, present society is of course a lot better than in the 1960s through to 1980s, but it's still pretty homophobic. You have the "outright homophobic and proud to be so" ignorant asswipes, which you can find in abundance in Singapore, and you have the liberals who're really okay with anything, you also have the aware person, who either really is okay with it, or simply pretends to be okay with it and acts like he's okay with it but really isn't. He acts like he's fine with it because for an aware person, homophobia is a detested label.

Homosexuality is not a choice, you can repress parts of yourself, but look what happened to Ennis and Jack (fictional, I know, but how many people in the Southern states experienced something of the like, only their stories are untold?).

I think this is where Singapore tries and fails to be a first world country. We're trying so hard to want to be better, and we are, economically, infrastructure-wise, etc. But socially? We're about as backward are you can get, for a country as well developed in other aspects. The government is putting emphasis on cultural development, but before you can improve on culture, you have to improve on society. And that is a nigh impossible task, especially when Singaporeans (especially youths) lack empathy.