Brokeback Mountain

I don't really know what to say, except I think I'm in love with this movie.

It was so perfect, and so incredibly acted, and so real. Somehow that reality, and the exquisteness of it as a movie mitigated the tragic aspects a bit for me, so when it finished I felt peaceful, and full of quiet joy that I had seen it. But then going to sleep and waking up, I couldn't stop thinking about it, and the weight of what had happened sunk in. Not in a despairing kind of way, though. I don't quite know how to describe it, except that it just stays present to me.

It was so good. So, so good. Every single actor did a really fantastic job. The setting was unbelievably beautiful. The story was incredibly complex and layered, for all its fairly simple layout. Jake Gyllenthal (spelling?) was amazing. Heath Ledger was extraordinary. I was incredibly impressed by them both. Heath Ledger seemed to be physically swallowed by Ennis, to inhabit him. The woman who played Ennis' wife was also extraordinary, and I was captivated (for all her small amount of screen time) by Jack's mother. Everything just felt real, in this totally palpable way. Oh, and I was completely invested in Ennis' eldest daughter, as well. She reminded me of me extremely... not just because she had brown hair and eyes, but really because of the way she carried herself, and how much she loved her father, the way she related to her father. That really resonated so much with me. All of the characters really did... I related a lot to the women, and I could feel for them so much, even though I was totally invested in Ennis and Jack's relationship. But when Alma (I think that was Ennis' wife's name) was suffering over having found out about them, I just felt it... I felt the hopes she had for her life, and how much she was confined... oh, especially when Ennis just sort of dropped the kids off at the store because he had to go to work... and I just had this feeling like I was inside her, like, the men have everything, they have everything, and now they have to take this, too. The one power that women have over men is stripped away. And I mean, of course it was a personal pain, but so... exacerbated. I didn't blame her one bit for lashing out at him, even though it was awful for him.

Jack and Ennis were so real... it took a long time to get to know them, even, Ennis especially. It took awhile to really start to feel them, and I learned more about them slowly throughout. So extraordinary. I can't say enough about the work of these two actors. I really can't. It's hard to believe Heath Ledger is the same person I saw in Casanova... because in so many was he wasn't! It was just... consummate transformation-- so, so, so marvelous. And their love story was utterly compelling. I'm fascinated by the interlocking themes of manliness and violence and repression and love and communication... the way they recurred in almost every character, almost every relationship in one way or another, so that the people were complete, and themselves, in each relationship they had. So many times in movies there's this "inevitable" love story. You know it's going to happen, it has to happen, and it does... but it doesn't feel real, precisely because of that. This was completely the opposite. You know it's going to happen, it has to happen, and it does... not even in a surprising way or anything... but it feels so real that it loses nothing to its own inevitability. It feels so real that it captivates without casting a glamour. Plenty of times love stories make me long for a love "like that," and I guess in some ways this did... but more, it made me feel part of that love, or, it was so connected to real feelings that I knew I have experienced this emotional world, and that I will go on experiencing it, because it is my emotional world too... because there is something about it that taps into being human, no matter what the specifics of your experience are. I know that all of these characters are like me, because I know they feel like I do... they just express it differently.

This movie says something that I have been trying to understand, about the violence that is done to and by all men and women, of any sexuality, in the name of conforming to society. It is not a joke or a theory... it is real violence. And it may not kill us all, but if it is not opposed it will surely drain who we are, to a colorless approximation.

And somewhere inside and beside and with that violence... there is beauty, too. There is the life of the soul. That's what struck me so much about Jack's mother... she lived in this squalid, soulless environment, and her soul was still so vital inside her. And that's why there is so much joy in the movie, and so much joy in me for having seen it, I think.

But I don't want to philosophize about it too much just yet. Go see it. You'll understand. I hope so much that everyone sees this. I think this is a movie with the power to change hearts, not because it actually changes them, in fact, but because it exposes them to the truth that is present in them already.

I love this movie, and I love the people in it, and when I saw the credit come up with the author's name I felt such a fierce joy and pride. It is my vocation to make stories like this, too. That is what I want. More on this later; it's something I've been meaning to talk over.

In the tradition of my more thoughtful posts, I'll end with a song. Consider it a love song, and a song of thanks for this beautiful story:

Now I walk in Beauty,
Beauty is before me.
Beauty is behind me,
Above and below me.
Now I walk in Beauty.