Brokeback Mountain

Happy 20th anniversary to the movie that made me love movies. Getting to see this movie in theatres was such an amazing experience. I’ve never gotten to see one of my favourite movies in theatres before so I was over the moon when I found out they were doing anniversary screenings. Somehow, I think I love this movie even more now. I found myself tearing up at so many moments that hadn’t made me feel such strong emotions a since the first time I watched the film, it’s just so phenomenal, and even better when watched in the way I was able to today. Brokeback Mountain is a genre defining film for both Queer Cinema and Romance and a decade defining, if not a generation defining film for the 2000s. As someone who has watched a lot of queer cinema, there is no queer film that captures love and pain and how they interact with one another in the way Brokeback Mountain does. Sexual repression has never been tackled better than it is in this film and it makes for an absolutely enthralling watch. While Brokeback is about love to some capacity, I find its most important theme to be the pain in which repressing oneself can bring. There is no closure, there is no what could have been, there is no happy ending and it isn’t because this was inevitable, it is due to the choices Ennis actively makes in grappling with his own identity. It is not a love story to admire but instead a cautionary tale of how desperate and unhappy ignorance and fear can make people. The passion we see every time Jack and Ennis are together is just like the first time because it is never able to evolve beyond that. Ennis’ fears keep him and Jack distant yet so deeply linked that neither is ever able to be fully satisfied or content with their relationship or their own lives. The constant looming sense of what “can” be versus what “could” be versus what “should” be is pervasive in this film and is the central conflict that stops Jack and Ennis from ever receiving the ending they truly deserved. Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger also put in some of the best performances of both of their careers in this film. From top to bottom they are both wonderful to watch. This movie is more visually stunning than I could have even imagined when seeing it on the big screen and the music is even better when watching it in theatres, I swear I was absolutely torn apart by the end of the film. This movie will always have such a big place in my heart.