Last night I organised childcare and went to see Brokeback Mountain. At the end of the movie my friend and I were a bit ambivalent about it but the movie has stuck in my mind and it’s growing on me.
While watching I thought it was a bit slow and I wanted a bit more speed with the story – maybe that’s a hangover of more fast-paced movies and television shows I’ve seen. In retrospect, of course the film would not have worked at a fast-paced level.
What is coming through now, for me, is the hopelessness of their love for each other. I think one thing that was captured really well was the secrecy surrounding their long-term affair and how it affected Ennis’s wife in particular as she found out early on.
I wondered if some people who didn’t say they knew actually knew he was gay – like Jack’s wife and Jack’s mother – a bit like Ennis wondering if everyone was staring at him because they knew his secret.
The location – particularly in the beginning with the sheep on Brokeback Mountain – was spectacular. The loneliness comes through also, in location, and the characters, including the women.
I did think it was a bit convenient that Jack died. I was starting to wonder how the affair would pan out. Would they still be doing their fishing trips when they were old and grey or would Ennis finally consent to setting up house with Jack?
The scene when Ennis goes to Jack’s parents house and finds the two shirts with blood on them was very poignant and, for me, is when I finally got to see the extent of Ennis’s love for Jack.
Back to real life. Fast forward to 5am this morning. JJ came to my room and informed me that my sister doesn’t do it the way we do it. What??? I told him to go back to bed and when I asked him about it at a more decent hour later on he said that she’d made him go to the toilet before he went to bed. I always make him do that so I don’t know why he got so upset.
