Life at Movies

UNIVERSAL STORY OF REPRESSED LOVE: BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
HALDUN ARMAGAN

There are movies for fast and easy consumption while others, a rare occurrence, require longer time than usual to digest and later become lifetime classics. Ang Lee's internationally acclaimed award-winning movie "Brokeback Mountain" stands right in the middle of both. For a careless viewer with fast-food movie culture, "Brokeback Mountain" is about a love story between two adult men. Then so what? And what's the big deal one may wonder: Place the movie in the gay and lesbian films category and put its success down to the clout of gay lobbying in Hollywood.

This is what you may heard or read so far about "Brokeback Mountain," and I strongly resent that shallow interpretation. Let me say, without waiting for the last line, that “Brokeback Mountain” is a timeless classic with a story which goes beyond the boundaries of a gay love affair. It’s been described as a gay cowboy movie, as in the Turkish media like in many others, including the U.S.’, but this is just a way of seeing this movie with prejudices attached and souls left out. A universal theme accompanies the agony of Jack and Ennis: Love and affection repressed by society.

In the Turkish context, try to imagine a Sunni who falls deeply in love with an Alevi, or a young girl from the country who falls in love with a boy while both sides are involved in a blood feud. You can develop empathy for Jack and Ennis, who tried not live despite themselves, and it only requires seeing the world through your heart, if you ask me. Every country has its own limitations and taboos. My examples of repressed feelings are about religious sects or rules imposed by tribal traditions, but the civilized world isn’t exempt from this either. If you think obstacles to love are an oxymoron in European Union norms, continue reading. Even today, two people from Belgium, the very essence of the EU, are being given a very hard time by their own communities about living their love. A man and a woman love each other but face problems in Brussels because one is from Flanders and the other is from Wallonia. Their story has been in the press for some time, and, even more oddly, one of them happens to be a lawmaker, a member of the Belgium parliament.

Jack and Ennis come from the thinly populated state of Wyoming with different family backgrounds, and they both discover themselves during a seasonal shepherding job on Brokeback Mountain. The intimacy and power of nature provide the necessary courage for them to express their affections for each other. Ennis seems more reserved and conservative. In fact both of them were ready to live the lives determined for them by society: Find a job, get married and raise children. The nature whispers to them, “Be natural, be yourself” and they listen. Jack adapts himself to the situation while it’s really hard for Ennis, who carries a trauma related to his father with him: "Two men who love each other deserve to die brutally," the father thought, and took Ennis and his brother to a rural hate crime scene.

Following a seasonal vacation, the bitter realities of Wyoming society in the 1960s prevail as both heroes did everything as they’re supposed to. Ennis marries Alma, and Jack falls into the unspoken world of a dual life after marrying to Lureen.

At this point the movie surpasses traditional story telling and treats each of its characters equally. We can empathize with Jack's struggle to not deny his heart, while we also understand that the main female characters suffer just as much. Lureen is victimized by her father's domination and apparently can’t run her life on her own, and Alma faces the challenge of accepting her genuine feelings about a store manager. The bottom line of "be yourself" is easy to say in this world of double standards, but reality is almost the opposite.

I left the movie theatre with complex feelings of sadness as well as hope. The movie ends on a sad note but we still should remain hopeful that things will change for the better even if we only have a couple of shirts and some ambiguous remarks from Jack's parents. In any case, the movie makes us realize that things could have been a lot different if people didn’t follow rules based on the repression of feelings.

Ang Lee deserves all the credit he gets for his directorial success of turning an affair between two men into a universal story of love made impossible by society. Equally important are the shining performances by Jake Gyllenhall and Heath Ledger, who make "Brokeback Mountain" a must-see for everybody with a heart and soul.

April 14, 2006 – The New Anatolian