Brokeback Mountain vs Monster's Ball

There is a moment—less really; it’s more of a flash—in Brokeback Mountain, when a postcard appears to have come to life. For a frame, maybe two, it looks a little larger, shines a little brighter, and then it’s done, back to being just a postcard. Random objects carry so much meaning and memory in Brokeback Mountain, just as they do in life: a whiskey bottle, a shirt on a hanger, a postcard.

Ennis Delmar is a sad, lonely, angry young man who rarely smiles, laughs or even speaks. He’s only nineteen or twenty years old, but you can already see in his squint and the way he kicks around that he’s already aged twice that, he’s just waiting for the outside to catch up with the inside. Ennis is spending the summer guarding camp and cooking beans while Jack Twist herds sheep all day and sleeps in a tiny tent. They meet for meals and supplies, and in front of the fire, Ennis tells his story and performs what for him amounts to smiles and laughs. Because of Jack. Before long, Ennis isn’t guarding the camp alone. Jack and Ennis don’t necessarily understand their relationship. Ennis makes a point to say he’s not a queer, and Jack agrees. They leave the sheep camp at the end of the summer, go their separate ways, and don’t see each other for four years.

During this time, Ennis marries his teen sweetheart, Alma (Michelle Williams) and has two girls; his daughters cry so much I initially thought there were three of them. Ennis and Alma are as sad and lonely as a couple as he was an individual, and though there is obvious love between them, there’s little affection. Jack is in Texas, married to Lureen (Ann Hathaway), a rich farm machinery company heiress/rodeo star/running timeline of hairstyles (she sort of rocks, if you can’t tell). And something is missing from every life. Jack gets back in touch with Ennis, and they plan a fishing trip. They surprise everyone—themselves, us, a wife at a kitchen window—with an eruption of passion upon their reunion, and realize that their relationship must continue. Jack and Ennis go on meeting for weekend fishing and hunting trips in Wyoming, for years and years, though neither brings home any fish.

Jack and Ennis could possibly be happy together, in another time and place. Ennis especially is fearful of what others might think, feeling like all eyes are on him even when he’s alone. He’s also carrying around the story of an older male couple murdered in his home town. He’s wracked with guilt and anguish over what he’s become through the twenty years of being mainly alone, but with Jack a couple times a year. Ennis feels like a nothing and a nobody, and as a result rarely has much of a job or home, or relationship with his family. He just silently moves through his day, drinking, picking fights and making time with a bar waitress (Linda Cardellini). Jack had been so much more hopeful about them having a real life together, but too much time has passed, and here Ennis is, squinting with regret, in his tiny trailer with no one except a postcard, some whiskey, and a shirt on a hanger. Brokeback Mountain is one of the saddest, sparsest and loneliest films I think I’ve ever seen. It makes Clint Eastwood look like Willy Wonka. It makes The Hours look like Charlie’s Angels. It’s damn near brilliant.

Ang Lee directed Brokeback Mountain, with his usual grace and visual style. It has all the cinematographic elements of the best westerns (any random shot of scenery is a still-frame masterpiece), but also his unusual talent for period locations and sets. Brokeback Mountain is set in the 1960s and ‘70s, and every element, from living rooms to hairstyles to soda bottles is dead-on without every slipping into parody. Brokeback Mountain is near silent; no one says anything unnecessary, with even more necessary words going unspoken for years. It’s a movie about close-ups and pauses, about sunsets and sheep and trucks. Every performance in Brokeback Mountain is career-best. Jake Gylennhaal and Heath Ledger star as Jack and Ennis, respectively, and are as good as you’ve heard (I read a review that called Ledger a genius; that seems a little over-stated, but not by much). As the women in their lives, Michelle Williams, Ann Hathaway and Linda Cartelini scale heights unimaginable for girls previously cast in Dawson’s Creek, The Princess Diaries and Scooby Doo. And a subtle, menacing Randy Quaid shows up, to bring the whole thing full circle. He was in The Last Picture Show, also scripted by Larry McMurtry, also a groundbreaking non-western, also sexually complex, also brilliant.

Leticia Musgrove is another of those sad, sad characters that appeal to me so much (I’m either a sadist, savoring the pain of others, or a masochist, wallowing in their pain on purpose. Discuss.) Leticia has it so rough, she could make Ennis look on the bright side. I’d bring out the laundry list of Leticia’s recent tragedies, but I try to keep these reviews under twenty pages. Suffice to say, Leticia isn’t drinking herself sloppy every night because Grizzly Man keeps getting bumped down her Netflix queue, like some people I could name (cough—me—cough, cough). But like Ennis, Leticia has found love—or at least a loving substitute for pain—in a seemingly forbidden place: the arms of her husband’s executor, who also happens to be a second-generation (at least) racist. Luckily, he’s played by Billy Bob Thornton, so the well runs deep, and there’s little in the way of stereotype, cliché, or bullshit. This is the man who momentarily makes Indecent Proposal interesting. So none of us have to worry, Leticia least of all, that Thornton’s Hank will do her wrong, or waste her time with too many words, or restrict her to the same boring sexual positions over and over. He’s like Ennis Delmar after a successful batch of New Year’s resolutions.

Of course, Leticia is played by Halle Berry, and she had her share of the sort of nicknames, labels and controversy that the stars of Brokeback Mountain are getting. Her performance was over-praised and over-hyped, sure, but for one very good reason: it’s uncomfortably good. Much was made about Berry getting ugly for her role, but Leticia is beautiful. Perhaps the problem is that Leticia is poor, but not that feisty Erin Brockovich kind of poor, where she’s out there Making Things Happen. Nope, Leticia is poor, and sad, and walking to work, and she might be late tomorrow because there’s always the chance she’ll be grieving some devastating loss. But don’t mess with her, or with Hank. They’ll get some chocolate ice cream, and maybe some booze, and work through their problems on their own. Like the cast of Brokeback Mountain, Berry and Thornton (not to mention Heath Ledger and Peter Boyle, as Hank’s son and father, respectively) don’t manipulate the audience. They aren’t there to gain our affections; they have a hard enough time getting any from the other characters. It’s not pretty, and it’s not always easy to watch, but Hank and Leticia are doing everything they can to just feel. Somehow, they find a relationship that just might work for them. I know a nice place up in Wyoming they can vacation.

Brokeback Mountain: A
Monster’s Ball: A