Brokeback Mountain
Reminds me of the good old Pushing Hand days of Ang Lee……..
The story is set in the 60’s, the Malboro Man era; due to a job offer, two cowboys met.
In Brokeback Mountain.
Through the eyes of the director, there’s a sky and clouds, there’s the mountain and forest, and there too, herd and the two lonely cowboy. Amongst these, occasionally thunders are heard. Like a breathing earth, telling the story of two men.
Unfortunately, the sky is too high, the land is too wide, and the tent is too small.
This is the clever reason the director linked all these together. In Brokeback Mountain, the world belongs to themselves where their love blossomed and the warmth of their bodies cherished. When they came back to the so-called “Real” world, locks and chains and boundaries set by the moral standard tie them down. OR tied them up for all the other thousands things they need to do to live in it.
In the mountain, there"s only one place they could stay-in, the tent; they’d found true freedom.
In the society, there’re thousands of possibilities and chances they could work on and go for; they lost themselves.
Ang Lee projected in the film that there’re two worlds, one in the heart/spirit, and one where they lived in. Only problem is both actually are exactly opposite of what they appeared to be.
In nature, names have become unimportant. The two cowboys are presented to the audience as their characteristics.
One with a square face, brown jacket, quiet, and wore his hat when he bath. Basically a person with a great sense of insecurity; lack of self confidence, passive, and rational.
The other one is more good looking, more talkative, smile a lot more, and wear his boots in his bath. A playful type, more aggressive, and knowing better of self-protection.
Hat in the head reflects being rational, let the brain be the lead. Boots on the feet represent follow the heart, action comes first. When two don’t sync, tragedy born. (Probably Ang Lee has read the Russian story about a hat fell in love with a pair of boots. They will never be together until they are not needed anymore to serve their functions.) In the later part of the movie when one of them was dead and the other one went to his home and noticed the pair of boots in his friend’s house. The camera showed the man with his hat looking at the pair of empty boots, we are shown by the scene the contrast between these two men’s personalities.
Ang Lee is making a love story. A story with a love story hidden behind these two characters. I think is so clever that he has made this movie in such subtle manner. Just like the two cowboys and the society around them in the movie, the audiences are constantly being presented with objects that’re so hidden yet so obvious. Yes, he is telling a love story, in the era of the macho Malboro man, a love story between two of them.
Taboo is the word.
