Fatal Attraction (Brokeback Mountain (DVD))

Member Name: utero

Product:	Brokeback Mountain (DVD)
Date:	09/02/06 (108 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great performances, beautifully shot, very strong story

Disadvantages: None really

There was once an episode of South Park where the Sundance film festival was deemed as a load of movies about gay cowboys eating pudding. When the news of this movie first hit, I’m sure there were some who laughed.

Now every year there is always one movie released to court an Oscar buzz. This year’s critical darling is Brokeback Mountain. Now in some years the buzz is instigated by a studio hell bent on wringing out extra box office dollars despite the picture not being the best of the year. Sometimes the film is worthy and I have to say that on this occasion the hype is justified.

Brokeback Mountain is an old-fashioned movie. By that I mean it combines a great visual tone with a well-crafted story, ably supported by some fine performances and a deft hand by the director.

Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist are two young cowboys who arrive in a small farming town looking for seasonal work. A rancher hires them both to look after his sheep as they graze up on the hills of Brokeback Mountain. Their job is a lonely one, spending every day merely keeping watch over animals. Their only company is the company of each other. Slowly the relationship between the pair evolves into a mutual attraction that soon becomes hard to resist. Despite both men’s heterosexual lives, the loneliness of their surroundings gets the better of them and one-night changes their whole lives forever.

Once the job is over, they go their separate ways, get married, have children and live regular lives. But their time together always lingers and their need to be together is too strong to resist.

I have seen some people’s reactions to this being a love story amongst men quite strange. It doesn’t matter whether you are gay or not, this is simply a great love story that just happens to be between two members of the same sex. I know some people have not had an interest in seeing it because of this. That’s too bad and it’s their loss.

For me Brokeback Mountain has everything you could ever ask for in a movie. In this day and age where movie’s bypass character and story in exchange for CGI and MTV editing, it makes a refreshing change.

Director Ang Lee is a master at this kind of drama. He let’s the story breath in it’s open air atmosphere by letting you settle in and understand the environment the two men find themselves in. Brokeback Mountain is a character in the film, open, stark and lonely. Visually it’s a wonderful film, the scenery along makes it worth seeing on the big screen. The panoramic views backed by the twang of a guitar make you feel free. My money is on Lee to take the directing Oscar for his work here and it would be richly deserved.

The cast is also excellent. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal do their best work so far. Ledger is particulary strong and takes most of the screen time. Ennis is a repressed man, raised to make his living from the land. Yet this homosexual tendency is a curse on him, Ledger does an excellent job of portraying the struggle. Gyllenhaal is equally as good, giving the role of Twist a good grounding.

Ledger’s performance rely’s on playing off the woman in his life. Michelle Williams creates good chemistry on screen in the role of the wife trying to come to terms with her husbands secret. The fact that the couple started an off screen relationship comes as no surprise. Williams leap from Dawsons Creek to this establishes her as a name for the future. Anne Hathaway’s role as Twist’s wife is minimal, there’s not a lot for her to get stuck into but what she does is great.

If I had to find a negative in the whole thing it's the aging that takes place on the characters as the years progress. But it's a hard thing to pull off without resorting to elborate make-up and that would just detract from the story.

I can’t praise this film highly enough. Personally I’m glad that it’s been a critical and financial success as it could easily have been dismissed as ‘that gay cowboy’ movie. Instead it’s proof that a movie with a strong script and cast on a modest budget can slowly grab an audience and make money. Hopefully with some blockbusters not making the money, studios will put their money back into more films like this.

Simply put, Brokeback Mountain is one of the best films you’ll see this year.

Summary: One of the films of 2006