<![CDATA[BROKEBACK]]>I saw it last night. Maybe my hopes were too high, but the movie didn’t quite sustain itself for the time it took, I felt. The short story accomplished it all with more concision and thereby with more punch. But the movie, as you’d expect with Ang Lee, had enormous integrity. Heath Ledger was magnificent in his indirection – this was a rare movie in which the anguish of the outwardly conforming, “straight-acting” gay man was exposed in all its raw pain. Three scenes remain in my mind. There’s a shot after the two men leave each other for the first time when Ennis [Ledger] stays upright and walks nonchalantly as his lover drives away. But then, as soon as his beloved is out of sight, he collapses in emotional pain, punching a wall in agony, even then having to deflect the suspicion of a stranger. The moment when they reunite – its passion, its need, its depth – ravishes with insight into what love truly is. Then there’s the scene when Ennis’ wife finally confronts him – and you can see the damage done to so many lives by the powerful, suffocating evil of homophobia. So many lives. Sometimes I start to imagine how much accumulated human pain has been inflicted for so many centuries on so many gay hearts and souls, and then I stop. It’s too much. We are slowly healing; but some wounds will never heal; and they are inscribed on the souls of millions in the past – the ones who persecuted, the ones who suffered, the ones who never let themselves be loved – or saw it briefly once, feared it and lived their lives in the lengthening shadow of their regrets. Yes, these were souls whose backs were broken. And now a new generation stands up.
– posted by Andrew
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