Starring: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway
Director: Ang Lee
Category: IIB
Calling it a gay cowboy movie just isn't quite right. Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee's touching cinematic tale is more like a country and western song, full of lonesome, twangy notes and achy emotional honesty. The year's most compelling romance is a stoic depiction of the love that dares not speak its name (they certainly never talk about 'it') between two ranch hands, set in big sky country. It's a small film in terms of scale and budget, but it's epic in its emotional arc, covering 20 years of the characters' lives.
Outgoing Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) and quiet Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) meet when they take seasonal jobs tending sheep in Wyoming in the early 1960s. In isolation in the wilderness - over campfires, whiskey and beans - they develop urges beyond even their own comprehension. After an initial rough and hurried sexual tussle, Ennis states the morning after: 'I ain't no queer'. Jack replies, 'Me neither.'
However, true feelings remain, buried in frustration, denial and anger. When the two can't display their romantic affection, they use their unspent energy to fight and pummel each other. Traditional westerns might always have had homoerotic subtexts, but Brokeback Mountain is less about macho fetishism than unrequited love. It's what they hold back that draws a tear to the eye. It's what they don't say that tells you what they really think. Director Lee is without a doubt the master of repressed articulation.