Brokeback Mountain: Can love really conquers all?
A sudden departure, is the most unbearable one
*Spoilers alert
I have watched this movie quite some time ago and whenever I listen to He was a Friend of Mine, The landscape of the mountains, the cool river, the green, prickly grass forms a beautiful picture in my mind.
Ennis was a man, who was always careful and living on the ground. While Jack was the wild one, who always held crazy but nice ideas of how life should be. They worked together that one summer on Brokeback mountain, and the path of their lives crossed and intertwined.
As most people should know, at that time, their love was not recognised, hence they had to kept their relationship in the dark. At first, after they left the mountain, they lost touch with each other for four long years, each started a family of their own. Then, Jack reached out, and they saw each other again. A lot has happened in the meantime, Ennis divorced because his wife found out about his secret, Jack‘s relationship with his wife was more like business partners than lovers, and in both relationships he couldn’t find satisfaction. The situation lasted until Jack died.
I love the mood of the story, at first steamy and rushed, then moved onto the steady and dull part of life, and finally build up to a climax that will leave you hanging, clinging to your seat, unable to move away. I especially love how this movie can give me that feel, a feeling that force me to give out an alas for the helplessness of life. It showered viewers with beauty and cruelty, like most films I love.
The pace of the story is also great. It was quick at first, because their love was also like a passionate wind that blew in a hot summer. Later on, when they spent time apart, it seemed weary and dull, as if it would expand forever, making viewers believe that their feelings cannot bring time across time. However, when they started meeting again, thing went forward speedily, and in a flash, twenty years passed. The good times went away in the blink of an eye, that’s how they were meant to be. Then, a lot of dull and monotonous years were sure to come after Jack died, and the memories and feelings may linger until Ennis die. Therefore, it marked the end of the movie, where the feelings will go on forever.
Other than that, the story focuses on “waiting”, but a different kind of “waiting” than Call Me By Your Name. It emphasised on the waiting after they parted, how they finally met each other after four years, how they can only see each other a few times a year afterwards, how Jack went to find Ennis but only to be disappointed that he was busy with something else. For twenty years, they waited and waited, for the time to meet, the time to part, the time to catch up, the time to separate. They missed each other, but they must wait. It breaks my heart, to see Ennis being unable to love again, for his heart was stolen by Jack, a person whom he pushed away. And Jack was so far away from both his wife and Ennis, for he couldn’t reach the person he truly loved, and the woman whom he loved buried her head in piles of paper all day long. So, in the end, everyone suffered. And no one is to blame.
The story struck me the most in a few scenes: when Ennis had to leave after their date, and told Jack that he won’t be seeing him until November, which is about a year later. Jack remembered that time when they worked together, how Ennis hopped on the horse and went to the sheep, saying that he would be back soon. As they grow older, they cannot afford to see each other as frequent as before. Life played a cruel joke on them, and alas, on everyone. As we get older, time slipped away. There’s too little time to get together, too little chances.
Then Jack finally exploded. He didn’t understand why must he be the one to give way every time. He couldn’t survive with Ennis always so far from him.
At last, when Jack died, Ennis imagined that he was killed by some homophobia folks in town, as when he saw as a little boy. That was his fear all along, that if they really were together, they would be the laugh of the town, and eventually got themselves killed. And it was highly likely that Jack was killed by those people. Either way, he found out that Jack kept his lost shirt with his in his room. When I looked at the shirt, I imagined that they would be together, always. At first, Jack’s shirt was on the outside, and Ennis’s on the inside, as if Jack was trying to hide and protect that treasure, to protect Ennis. However, when Ennis got hold of it, he put his shirt outside and Jack’s on the inside, which in my mind, show that he will always have Jack in his heart, forever and always.
