and then something happens ~

[lookingland]

just finished watching Brokeback Mountain.

i would first like to qualify my response by saying:

1. i really like ang lee's work in general.

2. i think heath ledger is a good actor.

3. i had no biases going into this movie. the mind was so open my brains were spilling out.

all that said:

1. what a crashing bore.

2. what ennis does to his wife was despicable to the point that i coulda cared less about his travails later down the road. i mean, character-wise it's interesting, but nothing ever redeems him for me. he's worse than jack in that he never takes any action for anything he wants and then he blames jack and whines to him and we're supposed to be feel sorry for him? bleh. boring. dumb.

3. pretty scenery.

other than that, i have no idea what i just watched. i guess i liked the scene where jack tells his father-in-law off and that one almost-good moment where jack's mother gives ennis a paper bag for the shirt, but otherwise i was mostly bored and irritated and felt like i was wasting my time. and was that supposed to be Juarez? because, er, there's a big freaking mountain in Juarez. the landscape looks nothing like that on the border (okay, that's really nit-picky).

i didn't hate this, but i did feel like it was a short story dragged (and dragged) out to make a full-length movie. the interminable opening sequences (actually the whole first half of the movie) was just insanely dull.

eh.



i really like the final image of the hanging shirt.
just wish i actually cared about it, or them, or
what it all meant.
[/end review]

Comments

Re: My thoughts:

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

i think the point about nostalgia is an interesting one ~ and may be part of why i don't find myself connecting to this film at all (because the nostalgia is so central to their relationship).

i'm not a nostalgic person. nostalgia baffles me. i understand being fond of something past, but acting in the present on that fondness always strikes me as potentially foolish and irresponsible.

if i judge the characters at all, it's for that:creating their identity out of thinking they could get back something that was ephemeral and unreal (i.e. fantasy). it only shaped their lives because they let it. for them to cry in their beer after the fact seems a weak choice dramaturgically. it may be the "human" choice, but for me personally it doesn't make for a good story (and that's my whole objection to the film ~ i think the story is pretty weak)

certainly a different way to examine it.