Brokeback Mountain - A Personal Take

Synopsis

Very briefly, ‘Brokeback Mountain’ begins by telling the story of two young men, one a ranch hand and the other a rodeo cowboy, who meet in the summer of 1963 whilst tending sheep up in the mountains of Wyoming. When a bitterly cold night forces the two to share a tent, it ignites a physical spark that would see them form a lifelong connection that would span 20 years, during which each of the two men marry and start their own respective families. While Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) is more self-aware and continually hopes for something more with Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger), Ennis remains conflicted, unable to bring himself to offer Jack anything more other than intermittent once-in-a-blue-moon getaways together under the guise of fishing trips. ‘Brokeback Mountain’ is essentially a story about two men, one who knew what he wanted and another who didn’t know what he wanted until it was too late. It is essentially a sad story, and a tragic one at that, filled with the pain of thwarted love, of longing sorrow, fear and loneliness.

Click here to watch the trailer and selected clips from the movie.

On A Personal Level

‘Brokeback Mountain’ is an immensely moving film. It is raw, overwhelming in its emotions, breathtaking in terms of the scenery but at the same time, does not attempt to pontificate on about homosexuality.

However, it was a tad too slow for my liking, at least initially. But once the story got under way, the final hour or so was emotionally gut-wrenching for me, albeit tempered by my determination to remain objective. Gyllenhaal, Ledger and Michelle Williams all gave superb performance in their respective roles as Jack, Ennis and Alma and where words and dialogue were lacking – which I found extremely frustrating at times – the emotions conveyed by their body language, facial expressions and their eyes more than made up for it.

Ennis is this stoic character who hardly speaks and shows little, if any emotion. Yet, we get a first glimpse of what he was really feeling inside when he bade Jack farewell after their first summer together working up on Brokeback Mountain. As Ennis watches Jack’s truck drive off into the horizon, thinking he'll never see him again, the seemingly stoic Ennis suddenly stumbles to a dusty sidestreet where he falls to his knees, vomits and pummels the wall he’s leaning against and weeps – perfectly articulating the emotions he felt – the confusion, the loss and pain swirling within him.

I was also moved immensely for Alma in the scene where she discovers, by accident, her husband’s infidelity four years into their marriage when Jack and Ennis meet up again for the first time after that summer of 1963. The profound shock, confusion and betrayal felt by Alma is an experience that anyone who has ever been cut wide open by love will be able to relate to.

The film allows us to slowly realise, almost as if teasingly, that it is the reluctant but stoic Ennis whose love is perhaps the most searing and most faithful – at least towards Jack in any case (discounting his infidelity towards Alma for the moment) – and one, which he tells Jack towards the end of the film that meeting him has cost him everything – including his chance of living a life as a married man with two daughters (whom he adores).

The other scene which really moved me was towards the end when Ennis visits Jack’s parents, only to accidentally discover his bloodied shirt tucked inside Jack’s shirt in a narrow space behind the wardrobe in Jack's bedroom – this was the same shirt Ennis had worn when he had a fight with Jack years earlier up on the mountains and which he’d left behind by accident. The entertwining of the shirts seemed as if to say Jack was holding Ennis. But by then, Jack was gone for good and we only get to see this unfathomable sadness in Ennis as he clutches the shirts tightly to himself, smelling them, as if wanting to take Jack into his embrace.

Years later, in the very last scene, Ennis walks over to a closet door in the trailer where he now calls home and as he opens the door, we see the two shirts again, hanging on the inside of the door; only this time, Ennis’s shirt is now on the outside and Jack’s on the inside, as if to say that he was now prepared to hold Jack in his embrace.

I walked away out of the cinema theatre deeply moved. Although I saw bits of myself in both Jack and Ennis, I identified mostly with Ennis (never mind the fact that his folks were Methodists too). However, it did not resurrect as many ghosts as I had initially anticipated, that for which I was thankful for.

As another blogger puts it so aptly, the film is a 'meditation' on the sorrow of finding everything you thought you wanted and yet not being able to or not knowing how to keep it. It is about a nagging ache within you that slowly eats away at you until you finally realise what you have lost and that it’s too late.

The Aftermath

I gave myself a few days to let ‘Brokeback Mountain’ fully sink in and I think it is still in the process of sinking in. I thought it was amusing that Jack and Ennis met whilst tending sheep on a mountain. As I recall how Ennis and Jack made blunder after blunder with their sheep tending responsibilities on their first summer up on Brokeback Mountain, I am reminded of God’s heart for humanity and for those who struggle with the cross that they bear.

Suffering and pain are common to all humanity – and God is in clear solidarity with human suffering. In terms of Christian allegory, it was Jesus who said that he was the Good Shepherd who was willing to lay his life down for his sheep and that he’d go out of his way to find any sheep that had wandered off. And I take comfort in knowing that even in the midst of great loss, I still have Christ who is eternal and whose love is enduring. I just need to remember to look for God’s shadow and His scent, even in the most testing of times and darkest of places.