There
is something about the concept of perfection that attracts us. It seems to
imply greatness. Often, we hear tales of greatness, and we listen, enthralled
by that quicksilver flash of flawlessness in a world which seems to have no
place for it. But watching greatness unfold before your very eyes is something
else entirely. And greatness is what was achieved by Ang Lee and his cast and
crew, in the film Brokeback
Mountain (2005).
Perfection, of such absolute proportion, that it stuns you.
The
film attained fame as one of the first mainstream films to deal with the topic
of homosexuality in a compassionate manner, without resorting to the
‘you-can-get-away-with-anything’ blanket of inane comedy. It portrays two men,
Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), who meet in the
course of a cowboy job on Brokeback Mountain, Wyoming, in 1963 U.S.A., and
slowly fall in love with each other, contrary to all of their previous
conceptions about themselves. The film then tracks their lives through the next
twenty years, as they marry, father children, and settle into the rhythms of
domestic life. But, as Ennis says at one point in the film, “Brokeback got us
good,”, and they are unable to resist their love for each other, and they meet
on-and-off through the years, for “fishing trips”, as they both explain to
their suspicious spouses.
When
this film came out in 2005, it was marketed as a ‘gay cowboy movie’. Anybody
who sees the film, and dismisses it as such, didn’t really pay attention.
Perhaps they were scared of the images flashing past on the screen, of two men
so desperately in love with each other, in total contrariness to everything
that society expects of them, that the rest of the world almost doesn’t seem to
matter. But the world does matter. Oh, it does. When Jack suggests that they
shrug off the yokes of their conventional lives, and move off to a ranch
somewhere, Ennis refuses and recounts the story of two gay men Earl and Ritch,
who used to live together in Ennis’ hometown, during his childhood. He
recollects how his father took him and his brother to see Earl’s corpse, after
he was tortured and killed by the townsfolk. Ennis’ father made sure Ennis saw
what happened to people who try to subvert the authority of society, and be
different.
In
that way, the setting of Brokeback
Mountain, during the
first act of the film, is crucial. It is only on the slopes of Brokeback, far
from the judgmental, conservative masses, in the company of hundreds of sheep
and a bunch of sheepdogs, that Ennis and Jack could feel that they were free of
the constraints of civilization, where they could be themselves, without fear
of ostracism.
This film is, only on the surface,
about homosexuality. What gives it the resonance of an epic is how it deals
with society’s choleric refusal to accept people who do not fit its mould. The
film is a passionate argument in favour of individualism. In the scenes between
Ennis and Jack, it strips bare the context, and shows us a beautiful thing, two
people in love, and at peace with each other and with themselves.
When you watch a lot of films, you
come across some extraordinary performances-Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote,
Bill Murray in Lost In Translation, Forest Whitaker in The Last King Of
Scotland, Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of The Lambs. Very rarely do you see a
film where even the two-scene cameos are worthy of special Oscars. Every actor
in this film is just pitch-perfect, whether it is the central roles of Ledger
and Gyllenhall, or their wives as Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway, or even
cameos like that by Roberta Maxwell as Jack’s mother. She has just one poignant
scene at the end of the film when Ennis goes to meet Jack’s parents, after a
certain shattering event which I shall not reveal. She plays a woman not
understanding where she went wrong in her upbringing that her son came out
‘queer’, and bravely trying to accept who her son has become. She does not
understand, but she tries to, anyway. And she does it so beautifully.
The film is littered with excellent
scenes like that. One where Ennis breaks down in an alleyway after he and Jack
part ways, seemingly never to meet again. You can see his pain, his deep
frustration. But he still covers the side of his face with a hat, so that no
one may see what’s going on in his mind. Another scene when Jack confronts his
father-in-law and asserts his supremacy over the domain of his own house. And
yet another, when Michelle Williams tells Ennis, long after their divorce, that
she knew about him and Jack, and we sympathize with her pain too. What does a
woman do, when she knows that her husband loves another man?
And
at the centre of it all, Ennis and Jack. Such a great pair of performances.
Heath Ledger was a maestro at his craft. His death is a colossal loss to the
film fraternity. How many actors have the versatility to play Ennis del Mar,
The Joker and Bob Dylan, all in the space of a few years? As has been said by
many critics, Ledger does not just know how Ennis talks or walks, he knows how
he breathes. And so too, with Jake. He plays Jack with the edginess of a caged
animal, a person who is trying to break free of his shackles in vain.
Ang Lee and his cinematographer
Rodrigo Prieto frame each shot with loving care, using mostly a steady camera
to catch the faces of the protagonists, staying in close-up almost all the
time, apart from occasional beautiful shots of the countryside. The editing by
Geraldine Peroni and Dylan Tichenor is commendable as well. Unusual for a film
of its style, they strip it of all fat, and there is not one self-indulgent,
art-house film moment. And the music by Gustavo Santaolalla, oh my God, what
can I say about that? When that guitar strum kicks in, you feel like crying.
That’s what the music does to you. You can feel it in your bones, in the very
core of your soul.
I
urge everyone who has not seen the film, to see it, and those who have seen it
once, to see it again. This story may not seem to be your story. But look
deeper. It IS your story.
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