It’s what we always knew to be true: beneath the tight jeans, sweaty chaps, and weathered countenance, the American Cowboy is an ass-pounder waiting to be born. [Editor’s Note: See Midnight Cowboy/ Homosexuality] Like the impressionable teenager who joins the army or the youngster who insists on a stint with the wrestling team, the cowboy willingly spends every waking moment in the exclusive company of men, hoping to catch that glistening, yet forbidden patch of butt cheek, or feel the heavy, scratchy breath of masculinity. Obvious truths aside, Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain shocked the hell out of me.
It is a gracious, tender film of such depth and dignity that were this nation not packed to the gills with homophobic creeps, it would go down as the year’s most powerful love story. Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger give Oscar-worthy performances (you heard me) as Jack and Ennis, two lonely ranch hands who meet during a shepherding job in the mountains of Wyoming (filmed in Alberta, Canada, however) and form a lifelong bond that, yes, involves sex. A whole lotta sex, in fact. Ennis remains in Wyoming while Jack moves to Texas, yet they continue to meet several times a year for friendship and outbursts of passion.
Visually, this film has the texture of a Terence Malick piece and in some ways, the same overall tone. There’s nothing lurid, or exploitive, or even shocking about this relationship; in fact, it’s handled with such quiet power that gender all but slips away. These are two simple, inarticulate men, yet they are driven by complex emotions and longings that even they could not hope to explain. But as Woody Allen has said, the heart wants what the heart wants, and what better case could be made for letting love take its course? One of the year’s best.
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