This is your typical indie coming-of-age tale about a teenager, though it’s clearly working with a very tiny budget. Set within a migrant family living in Southern California’s Coachella Valley, the movie digs into how fragile old-school traditions and expectations can be. We follow a teenage son as he goes through the process of coming out and struggles to find acceptance while dealing with homophobia, domestic abuse, and a messy love triangle that involves his own sister. Goyo is seventeen and just about to graduate from high school. Since he’s been a bit more feminine since he was a little kid, he’s always had to deal with emotional and physical transition from his dad, Ramon, who is obsessed with him being "a man." The only real love he gets is from a lady next door who actually respects him for who he is. The family lives in a Mexican community where everyone works on a grape farm, but things get shaken up when a new guy named Lucio arrives. Lucio basically seduces Goyo ...
The film begins in 1963, when Ennis and Jack, about 19 years old, get a job tending sheep on Brokeback mountain. Ennis is a boy of very few words. He learned to be guarded and fearful long before he knew what he feared. Jack, who has done some rodeo riding, is a little more outgoing. After some days have passed on the mountain and some whiskey has been drunk, they suddenly and almost violently have sex. Denying the initial incident as one-off thing, slowly the 2 men fall in love with each other and have a wonderful summer up the mountains but its time for reality. Time passes and both men are now married with kids. One day out of blue, Jack decides to visit Ennis, and the passion they both have for each other suddenly reignites surprising them both. The 2 men start having “fishing trips” every few months for a few days so that they can spend some quality time with each other and plan for a possible future. Jack thinks he and Ennis might someday buy themselves a ranch and settle down. Ennis who remembers what he saw as a boy: "This thing gets hold of us at the wrong time and wrong place and we're dead.”. Frustrations increase as the men grow older but one thing never changes for them is their love for each other. Unfortunately one evening, in an accident, Jack dies (which we are told through visual images, might have been a hate crime). Ennis’ world is devastated. He was always lonely but had Jack with him in spirit. He is now all alone with only memories of Jack.
The film is heart-breaking and yet in some way gives a hope for lovers. The way the 2 men react and understand their relationship is all because of the way they grew up. Ennis was always taught by his father to hate homosexuals, and hence he hates himself. In an incident of frustration he still feels immense pain and says "Why don't you let me be? It's because of you, Jack, that I'm like this -- nothing, and nobody." Jack, on the other hands more accepting of himself and wants whats best for both of them. The two respective wives have important characters especially Ennis’ wife, when she calls him out of the fake fishing trips. She had earlier seen the two men kissing and knew what the trips were all about. The closing scene involving a visit by Ennis to Jack's parents is heartbreaking in what is said, and not said, about their world. A look around Jack's childhood bedroom suggests what he overcame to make room for his feelings. This is a story of forbidden love marked by brilliant and amazing performances by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. The chemistry between the two men is impeccable and you wish you had a love like that for whom you would be ready to anything.
The film hits you like a shot in the heart and no wonder it rates as one of the best films ever made. A desperate sad story but a beautiful and moving experience. (9.5/10)
Comments
Why my eyes are filled by tears? Heath , rest in peace.
But yeah this time in second viewing, I was able to appreciate the nuances of Heath's acting a lot better.