Review: Brokeback Mountain

Stunning vistas, beautiful horses, and an Oscar-worthy performance by Heath Ledger have brought the mountain to the people.

Braving huge lines of people extending out the theater doors, down the street all the way to the Metro station and beyond, and I, wearing my black Stetson, caught the opening Washington, D.C., performance of Brokeback Mountain today at 1 p.m. Those without online ticket reservations were being shunted to the 2 p.m. showing, as the 1 p.m. show sold out online. It was an eccelectic crowd, largely male, but a not exclusively so, and with a broad range of ages from the geriatric to the teenaged. The movie is still in limited release across the country, so the one and only D.C. theater showing the film was the Loew's Dupont Circle 5, an older, smaller place usually limited to showing art and independent films, where they devoted three of their five screens to Brokeback Mountain with hourly showings.

We've all heard the storyline over the past several weeks prior to the opening about how two cowboys, Ennis (Heath Ledger) and Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) meet, fall in love, marry women, live in different states, and continue their romance for twenty years until the death of one of them. Director Ang Lee has created a beautiful epic period piece, helped in no small measure by the gorgeous Wyoming mountain landscapes. Those of us from the heartland will recognize every character from our rural experiences, and we know people just like each of the actors.

The Australian Ledger was noteworthy in his part as the quiet country man who doesn't talk much, and when he does, he speaks in a near monotone, only opening his mouth wide enough for a cigarette or maybe the occasional beer bottle. There was no trace of Ledger's natural Aussie accent as he convincing portrayed the flat, Wyoming western-American accent. As with so many of the men we know just like this, the only emotion he is confortable expressing is anger; nevertheless, between Ledger's expressive eyes and the tensing of muscles in his face, plus Lee's skillful direction, we can feel the depth and strength of his other emotions. Ledger has already been nominated for best actor with the Golden Globes, and he should also be nominated when it comes time for the Academy Awards.

Ennis lives in Riverton, Wyoming, where several of my cousins live! I daresay I've never seen that "post office" building before, even back in the 1960s and 1970s.

Gyllenhaal also offers a strong performance, but this is another situation like with the movie Amadeus, where both Tom Hulce (Mozart) and F. Murray Abraham (Salieri) were nominated for the best actor Oscar ultimately won by Abraham.

Many people in areas of the country where Brokeback Mountain has not yet been released have been asking me about whether or not this movie is suitable for seeing with family. I would say that it would be alright to see with parents and adult siblings or relatives, but I would be reluctant to take anyone under 16. Nudity in the film is limited; there is one scene where the cowboys strip off all their clothes so they can jump off a cliff to swim in the lake below, but the camera films the scene in a long shot, so while the viewer knows the cowboys are naked, one can't see anything; in another scene one of the cowboys has sex with his wife, and when he rolls off of her, there is a substantial nude breast shot; each cowboy also has a solo nude bathing scene, but they are both filmed in profile in a non-prurient, non-revealing way.

The one brief scene which makes me question the propriety of the movie for young teens is when the cowboys first make love. It's an unexpected, spontaneous moment when they roughly rip one another clothes off and have to use spit for lubricant; while we don't see much more than faces, we know exactly what is happening. While heterosexual movie equivalents to this scene are often longer and more graphic, society as a whole is still not used to the idea of homosexual lovemaking let alone watching it on screen. Consequently, I will not be surprised in the least if some small town, red state courthouse doesn't play host to an obsenity lawsuit if this movie plays in that county (the fact that it is clearly not obscene does not bar litigation for a formal determination of that fact, especially since 2006 is an election year).

The pace of the movie is stately, and there are no real action scenes to wake up the Great Unwashed Masses. Similarly, while it's a love story showing the unexplored area of two non-flamboyent men, it is not maudlin or melodramatic. And, interestingly, the one tearful time in the movie was not the death of one of the cowboys, but something afterwards (which I will not reveal here—after you've seen the movie, email me and we'll talk), when I heard most every gay man in the theater gasp and hold his breath. Go see it—you'll know what I'm talking about it when you see it.

So, Brokeback Mountain is excellent, and it doesn't disappoint. I urge you to go see it as soon as you can when it opens in your area.