Visual/Mental: The Cold Harsh Mountain

Brokeback Mountain

Directed by Lee Ang
Screenplay adapted by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana
Based on the short story by Annie Proulx

Starring Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway & Michelle Williams

Having read the original short story by Proulx a few years ago, I was surprised by how well a tale of love between two cowboys set against a panaromic Wyoming backdrop was told. When I learned that the 60-page short story would become a film directed by celebrated director Lee Ang, I hoped it would be made soon.

By now, most people would have associated Brokeback Mountain with gay forbidden love. The truth is, Brokeback Mountain is just a very simple tale of arduous love and anyone with an ounce of emotion should watch.

The union of director Lee Ang, scriptwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, and the cast results in one of the most exquisite and endearing films made in the last few years.

Lee Ang possesses the talent for slow, intricate and subtle film direction. He pays attention to almost every aspect from simple small gestures to complex emotional strifes set against the magnificent mountain view.

McMurtry and Ossana also adapted the story faithfully except for the fact that the two male leads were originally much less desirable than Ledger and Gyllenhaal with bucked-tooth and stocky bodies.

The assembled cast is the third link which leads the film to flight. Heath Ledger, the stoic straight-man type is caught unexpectedly in a tangled web of emotions for a fellow cowboy, something that had never crossed his less-than-queer mind. A man of few words, Ledger plays Ennis to perfection when he displays the inner turmoil that Ennis enountered trying to live his life the way it is and learning to love Jack. Every time Ledger breaks down and cries in the film, it's when you'll feel him.

Jake Gyllenhaal is the hopeful companion who prays for the day that the union could yield the type of permanence he so craved for instead of "a couple of high-altitude f**ks once or twice in a year." And he waited for 20 years until the audience shares his anguish and unfulfilled yearnings by the time he lashed out on what they ever have left is Brokeback Mountain.

Michelle Williams plays the silent, long-suffering wife who witnessed the earth-shattering and ultimately heartbreaking kiss shared between Ennis and Jack after 4 years of separation. Williams is exceptionally sorrowful, swallowing her unspoken hurt until she could hold it no more that she wanted to hear the truth out of Ennis' mouth years after her remarriage. Williams' acting powress is certainly validated by the expression she showed at the instance of that unexpected kiss and the heartwrenching exchange with Ledger.

Anne Hathaway plays a rich girl whose expertise is in making money not relationships. Given her short screentime, her change from a brash rodeo queen to a high-society career woman and finally a emotionless and grieving widow expands her acting abilities beyond her impish Princess Diary-self.

Many unions, liaisions and break-ups later, Brokeback Mountain emerges as a tragic yet bittersweet and endearing tale of love between four suffering people afflicted with varying degrees of attachment but all not willing to let go. To me, this suffices as more than a gay cowboy story. To enjoy Brokeback Mountain, an open mind and eyes are definitely pre-requisites. (A+)