Brokeback Mountain (2005)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2005
	Director: Ang Lee (Hulk, Life of Pi)
	Actors: Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko), Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight), Michelle Williams, Randy Quaid (Independence Day), Anne Hathaway (The Dark Knight Rises)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama, Romance, Western
	Conditions of visioning: 28.10.2014, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Unknown to each other, Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal) and Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) are hired to protect a flock of sheep from wolves high in Brokeback Mountain. A strong friendship will be born.
Review: It surprises me that this movie is already nine years old. I heard about its critical success, bought the Blu-ray some years ago and watch it only now. I was curious to see if it was the story of the strong friendship between two friends, or really a movie about "two homosexual cowboys eating pudding" like they say in South Park. Well, they indeed enter a romantic and physical relationship, in a quite abrupt way I would say, so it may startle you if you watch the movie without knowing anything about it. But void of the usual clichés about gay couples, Brokeback Mountain focuses on the troubled and contradictory feelings of our main characters. If the story was about a gay couple in a modern European big city, it wouldn't be remarkable. But the setting is very different: the Texan countryside of the 60's, in which there was no other path than the traditional one of getting married and founding a family with a different sex partner. Anything else was so badly seen that it could be punishable by death. Our characters try to fit into that tradition with different levels of success, but the movie is very well done in that it conveys extremely well the feelings the two young men have for each other. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that the actors are very good and amazingly natural. Besides, the landscapes are beautiful, the music scarce but sufficient, and I like how we follow the evolution of society around our characters from 1963 to the late 1970's: we see clothes changing, cars, habits, and their social situation that influences the furniture in their house (at some point a TV appears in the living-room). In particular when the two friends meet when they are older, they are better equipped and can enjoy a better comfort during their excursions (real tent, chairs, kitchen tools, better food...). This seems like a detail but it is what makes the movie look so real. One could criticize that the story is a bit elliptic and that we witness only some critical key moments (snapshots) in their lives, without enough continuity, but it is the price to pay to have a movie that spans 20 years without lasting 3 hours. It is hard for me to rate this movie as Dramas are not a genre I watch too often, but there is no doubt that it deserves a high rating.
Rating: 9 /10