Rating: 3 out of 5*
Genre: arthouse film… gay scenes, nudity, mild profanity, fantastic scenery!
It was with great anticipation and a certain sense of excitement that I entered the cinema today. I expected to be blown away, to be emotionally-wrecked or utterly moved, as had happened when I watched ‘The Hours’, yet, at the end of the 2hrs+ movie, I felt a tad bored and quite unsatisfied… Was this supposed to happen with a film that garnered 8 Academy Award nominations?
Bascially, this is a film of almost nothing. Stripped to its bare necessities, the storyline would be as follows:
2 20+ year old young men meet in 1963 as herders of sheep (shepherds??) at Brokeback mountain -> utter isolation -> two develop feelings for each other -> kissing, stripping, grunting, sleeping -> wakes up denying their sexual impulses for each other -> continue their licentious alliance -> separate, depart from Brokeback mountain…
both get married, have kids -> comes into contact with each other 4 years later -> resumes affair, one of their wives discover -> both marriage break down -> continue torpid love affairs ie. more kissing, grunting, stripping -> one dies later on due to freak accident -> end of story…
With such bare skeleton, I would expect the movie to be fleshed out by fantastic performances by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. I would expect numerous ‘layers’, subtle tones of emotions and a smouldering, omni-presence of sexual tension throughout most of the show… Overall, the effort put in was commendable, but more could be done to increase the underlying currents of sexual dissatisfaction and emotional craving.
Other than this crippling feature, the film is beautifully filmed, set in Canada (I hope I got my facts right), the expanse of brilliant blue skies with cotton wool columbus clouds… yum yum… I want to re-experience such force of nature… The male leads are of course, quite candalicious, with the sad exception that they are supposed to be gay here… haha… I prefer Jake Gyllenhaal though, heheheheh…
I encourage all to watch this movie after ascertaining that there ARE chinese/english subtitles… otherwise, you’d have to strain really hard to distinguish that weird accent and mumbling, especially bad case with Heath Ledger…
My favourite scene
This is the scene which is the most tender, loving one in the entire movie, to me at least… Go watch if you want to know how exactly beautiful it was… It reminds me of one perfect moment, lasting just mere 5min, which remains imprinted in your minds for eternity…
On gay sex
Hmmm… I found that initially it can be a bit disturbing, but hmmm… after the initial surprise wears off, it can be quite powerfully erotic, a marked difference from lesbian scenes… But please don’t go watch this movie expecting it to be providing raw, uncensored sex haha… it’s really more like artistic scenes… like how the actual coitus is more like a leaf twirling and falling to the ground in this fiercely blowing wind… buahahaha…
ok, I know someone is going to be really mad at this review, haha…. but aiya if u don’t agree, go and write your own lah! :P
