1686 out of 2032 people found the following comment useful :-
Two Men In Love at the Venice Film Festival, 3 September 2005

Author: bethlambert117 from United States

It was a real ordeal to get into the screening. The anticipation was palpable. The film arrived surrounded by a plethora of innuendo. "A gay western" "Heath and Jake's hot scenes" As soon as the film started every imaginable preconception flew out of the auditorium. This is a remarkable, moving and powerful love story. The setting is that of a modern western "The Last Picture Show" comes to mind. Ang Lee's attention to detail verges on science fiction. You can actually smell the place. Extraordinary. I'm not going to reveal anything about the story - Gian Luigi Rondi a legendary Italian film critic, revealed the ending to a television audience, what was he thinking?! - The film will be enjoyed much more allowing the story to unfold without having passages underlined and attention drawn to this or that particular. I felt compelled to write this comment because I'm overwhelmed. It has changed my perception, I must confess, about certain aspect of same sex love because I didn't think of same sex when I was watching it, I saw two human beings (amazing performances by both actors)I have the feeling "Brokeback Mountain" will make history, deservedly so.

948 out of 1175 people found the following comment useful :-
Love Story 2005, 4 September 2005

Author: dboyleukgroup from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The film was received by a long and heartfelt applause at the Venice Film Festival. I was kind of numb. Ang Lee, the magician, had dazzle his audience with another masterful trick. I'm not going to spoil the experience for you by telling you much about the film but as a way to share my own personal journey "Brokeback Mountain" inspired me to undertake, let me say that it's been one of the most unexpected emotional rides I've ever had in a movie theatre. A love story like no other, told without inhibitions, without cheap shots. With an honesty that is more unique than rare. Heath Ledger is, quite simply, extraordinary and Jake Gyllenhaal's commitment moved me and enthralled me. I can't wait to see it again.

939 out of 1216 people found the following comment useful :-
Ang Lee's Cowboys, 17 September 2005

Author: Donald Agustamarian from London, England

What an extraordinary accomplishment! Ang Lee presents us with something we've known about but we've never seen. Profoundly honest, stunning to look at, superbly acted. I could go on with the superlatives because I feel lifted by the experience. You've all heard the ins and outs of the subject treated here. Well, forget it, the words used are used words and do not apply here. "Brokeback Mountain" introduce us to something utterly new, daring you and me to be indifferent. The film is about us, really. Love as an unexpected blow that makes you find and confront yourself. Jake Gylenhaal gives a performance that you'll never forget. Michelle Williams and Ann Hathaway are incredibly good but the film belongs to Heath Ledger. I'm not going to talk about revelations or Oscar buzz, I'm just going to let you know that what he does in this film is so courageously beautiful, so truthful and so transcendental that his Ennis del Mar is bound to become a point of reference not just for us but for generations to come.

1047 out of 1438 people found the following comment useful :-
Powerful, Numbing, 12 September 2005

Author: Jamester from Canada

I just saw this at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) to a packed house (with Ang Lee present for today's screening). And I have to say, it absolutely transfixed me and was worth the watch. Out of 24 movies I screened at the TIFF this year, this was the only one I rated a 10/10! Three things really stood out for me making this a stand-out of a film:

1) HONESTY: Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal really pulled this off. I wasn't expecting performances so real and nuanced, and was warmly surprised. Kudos, also, to Mr. Lee for making such a poignant and refreshingly honest film!

2) STORY: Great story-telling. In fact you're not actually being *told* a story. The story unfolds and the viewer watches what happens pulling you in. What a great experience! In fact, I want to experience this story again -- I'm going to look for the short story.

3) NUMBING: In a thought-provoking kind of way. I left the theatre digesting the story even as I sat on the streetcar thinking about the characters. I cared for them, and wondered what could/might happen to them after the screen went black. My mind was playing out scenarios and in that sense, it was numbing, in a thought-provoking, emotionally heavy way.

This is powerful cinema and is definitely worth checking out. It's the best Ang Lee film I've seen to date (I've seen most, but not all of his feature films).

689 out of 824 people found the following comment useful :-
The Heart Of The Matter, 16 December 2005

Author: marcosaguado from Los Angeles, USA

I didn't believe for a moment that the film could live up to the hype, or to some of the comments posted here, some of them read like love letters to the film, to the director and the actors. Well, now, after seeing the film, I feel like writing a love letter myself. The film took over my senses and transported me. The tragedy that envelopes the lives of Ennis and Jack is caused by an ancestral ignorance that is part of our DNA and if you don't believe me read some of the hateful comments posted here alongside the love letters. That's the heart of the matter. After the summer in Brokeback Mountain, Ennis and Jack go their separate ways and Ennis hits a wall with his fists crying, trying to destroy his longing, self loathing, guilt, horror. Imagine in a world without ignorance and therefore without hatred, Ennis and Jack could have celebrated their love and attempt an honest life together. Imagine also if things were the other way and heterosexuals were the dark minority, imagine falling in love with a girl and having to keep it secret, never been able to tell or to show publicly your love for her. Men like Ennis, and there are many, have to curve their own emotions and conform, entering and developing unhappy marriages and why? Read some of the comments here and you'll understand why. There is one that condemns the movie and what the movie may do for his kid and his vision of cowboys without actually having seen the movie! That's the heart of the matter. I will go and see the film again tomorrow, if I can get tickets, I'm taking with me a group of people that hate the movie already without having seen it. I won a bet so they will have to. I'm taking them to diner later to talk. I intend to report the results if you let me. But for the time being let me tell you, "Brokeback Mountain" is an extraordinary film. Jake Gyllenhaal, Ann Hathaway and the magnificent Michelle Williams give superb performances but it's Heath Ledger's film. He gives us something that nobody could possibly have expected because what he gives us is not only, honest and moving and powerful but totally and utterly new.

1000 out of 1469 people found the following comment useful :-
A dream..., 3 September 2005

Author: RCharlesZH (RCharlesZH@hotmail.com) from Switzerland

I saw Brokeback Mountain at the Venice Film Festival (with Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hatheway, and Ang Lee in attendance)and it's been haunting me ever since. I had read Annie Proulx's short story in the "New Yorker" years ago and it haunted me as well. What is it about this story? It's a love story that starts out without love--and finishes with a love that never ends. Congratulations to the director and the entire cast, you did a great job. I wish you much success, although with the theme being so "delicate", it may have trouble finding a big audience in the U.S. The audience here in Europe, I can say, thought it was great.

697 out of 893 people found the following comment useful :-
Broken by a film..., 27 December 2005

Author: undone001 (undone001@yahoo.com) from Texas, United States

I'm 23, and I find it hard to write this review. I saw the film exactly one week ago today and not a moment has gone by when I don't ache. It finds me in the shower; it haunts me in bed; it has filled my mind and clings to my thoughts, and it won't let up. I try to lie to myself, to find some solace by saying that it's just a movie, but I know better. Jack and Ennis are alive, and they represent so many aching people, so many untold stories. There is no contrivance, no manufactured importance; there are no tricks. Brokeback Mountain tells, with painful honesty and frankness, the story of two men's lives and nothing more. Whether you are gay or straight, it doesn't hit close to home: it hits you. Brokeback Mountain is a place we all most desperately yearn to go. It's where we can be free. It feels funny to say that Brokeback Mountain is my favorite film of all time, because I think it almost an injustice to call it a film at all, or to critique its incredible technical sophistication. Somehow Brokeback Mountain transcends that. I could hear a thousand speeches celebrating diversity or read a hundred love stories and not be absolutely broken in just two hours as I was after this film. I've never felt waves of nausea come over me as I did sitting in that theater, my face contorted as I watched truth and honesty spill from the screen and onto moviegoers who had no idea what they were in for. I am usually the first to point out bias, so I know my words might be mistaken for favoritism or blind loyalty. They should not. This movie will change your existence. I find so many things in my life trivial now in the wake of this film---for me, watching it was truly like having a near-death experience. And am I better for it? Yes. Broken and undone, but better. For once in my life, I feel hope, and I've seen love.

675 out of 976 people found the following comment useful :-
New American classic love story, 12 September 2005

Author: mattfg from Toronto

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I was lucky to get a ticket to the second screening of Brokeback Mountain at the Toronto Int'l Film Fest in September, months before the well-deserved hype kicked in. This is an absolutely beautiful movie. From a gay man's perspective, the love story was both satisfying and heart-breaking.

Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal give equally moving and accomplished performances, although the story tends to focus more on Ledger's character. Heath is note perfect in this role. I didn't detect a false moment once from him. Regardless of whether or not he wins the Oscar, his performance in this movie will be watched and admired for years to come as a landmark in acting. I truly related to his character's internalized homophobia. Every gay man has been there before. In many ways, he represents the embodiment of shame and self-hate, a product of his American, western culture. The flashback showing his father take him as a boy to look at the dead body of some murdered gay man should be shown to every Christian fundamentalist out there who ever argued (and continue to argue) that homosexuality is a choice and that gay men and lesbians are nurtured by their environment. I've seen the movie three times now, and Heath brings tears to my eyes every time - he's so good. 

Jake is also incredible, sweet, nuanced, loving. He had the difficult part of being essentially the "love interest" rather than the main character. By the end, he personifies the tragedy of hopes that never come to be - as captured perfectly by Lee with the cut between the flashback of Jake's longing and beautiful face next to Jake 20 years later worn down by the weight of dashed dreams, wondering what could have been. This is one of those movies where you find that you fully appreciate both performances of the two men, Heath and Jake, equally, but perhaps one before the other over time. I was first blown away by Heath's performance, which seemed to eclipse Jake's performance - but over time, I've learned to truly appreciate what Gyllenhaal did here and how utterly perfect his portrayal really is. 

The other performances in this movie are all first-rate, especially Michelle Williams who is the portrait of vulnerability in this movie. She deserves all the accolades she's received for this performance. Anne Hathaway did well too with very little screen time, but knocked it out of the park with the phone call scene at the end (incidentally, the only scene her character even had in the original short story.) 

The movie should become both an American love story classic, as well as a gay classic. Glad to have someone of Ang Lee's talent take on a project like this. What an amazing man he is!

598 out of 885 people found the following comment useful :-
An amazing piece of cinema.., 12 September 2005

Author: qball_82

I was fortunate enough to see the North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. That was two days ago, and this film just wont leave my mind. Not that I'm complaining because this is what good cinema is all about.

Ennis and Jack, two cowboys who fall in love. As others have touched on, Brokeback Mountain is so much more than merely a "gay cowboy movie". It perfectly captures what true, unbridled love is all about and this love transcends any issues of sexuality or gender. "Love is a force of nature". Unfortunately for many people and indeed the protagonists of our story, society doesn't always view it that way. 

Kudos to Ang Lee who has not shied away from the material at all. This adaptation stays true to the original short story and the two lead actors fit the roles perfectly. Ledger and Gyllenhaal give incredibly strong performances but the supporting cast shouldn't be overlooked either, particularly a somewhat unrecognizable Michelle Williams. Solid work all around and with Mr Ang Lee's vision they have created an amazing piece of cinema that should not be missed by anybody. Without giving anything away, you are going to be moved by this one.

424 out of 600 people found the following comment useful :-
The Look Of Love, 20 September 2005

Author: abelardo64 from United States

I don't remember when was the last time I felt a movie like I felt Ang Lee's extraordinary "Brokeback Mountain". I can safely say it's the greatest, original American melodrama since the times of Douglas Sirk and I'm sure that even the great Todd Haynes would agree with me. His stunning "Far From Heaven" is an exquisite reproduction, this one updates and reinvents it without betraying it. My girlfriend had tears in her eyes and so did I. Heath Ledger's character spoke to me directly. And the word sex hasn't come into the equation yet. Love takes over the whole story and Heath Leger will be the dominating star of the next decade, if he wants to. Jake Gylenhaal is also superb but his character, nags,understandably so, but we know Heath much better than him and we're on Heath side. The buttoning of the shirt is already a landmark scene in my mind. I'm sure this film is arriving at just the right time. It will teach without preaching and many will learn.

200 out of 234 people found the following comment useful :-
Finally A Film Which Gets it Right, 12 January 2006

Author: nycritic

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

It was only time before a film about two men in love would get the treatment it gets in Ang Lee's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, since up to now, films had either skirted the subject, reduced it to a peripheral, sanitized version of itself or given it the eye-candy treatment only meant at making a quick impression in the "Gay-Lesbian" category. The simple yet deceptive story of two people who meet, fall in love, but are unable to fulfill their love has been done over and over again from the male-female perspective (i. e. IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, BRIEF ENCOUNTER), but never involving two men, and never this brutally honest.

Of course, the dynamic of male love is different than male-female love only in genitalia. Jack and Ennis' first encounter while waiting for work, their isolation leading to each other's arms, is the stuff of every restrained romantic drama. The mechanism of two men falling in love here develops along the lines of homo-masculinity dictating patterns of behavior which both Jack and Ennis obey whether they know it or not. It comes to me as no surprise when, following their first sexual encounter (brutally executed with undertones of sadomasochism but true to the style of love involving alpha males), they revert to "not being queers" but cowboys who excuse "what happened" to liquor and "manly needs". Which of course verbalizes society's impositions of men having to be "men."

Of course, things take a different turn and the heart wants what it wants. Once their work is done, Jack tries to keep their acquaintance alive but Ennis is so intensely closed and closeted to any possibility of emotions that he looks like he may implode at any moment and only once does he actually scream into his hat, bent over, as Jack drives away. The sound is a terrible, heart-rending puke of indescribable pain.

What follows is a series of brief encounters that become more intense as the years go by, but at the same time destroys two marriages and consumes then to the end. Love is an uncontrollable emotion, and when two people who belong together despite their gender cannot fulfill their dreams it's only a matter of time when things reach a head. Again, the constraints of time and space interfere: Ennis cannot see a life outside what he knows, again more a product of the trauma of seeing something horrible as a child, and Jack, not having what he wants, has to take to meeting other men in sordid locations and re-create a semblance of an affair with a man who resembles Ennis. In presenting these situations as they are and not trying to pursue change in its characters, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is the love story that transcends gender, space, time, and proves that love -- even when tragic -- is universal.

Even so, will straight people see the message behind the story? I believe straight women (and a few enlightened straight men) will be the ones drawn to view the movie over a majority of conservative idiots who still hold the idea of two men locked in intimacy as being repugnant and are ripping their feeble brains out over the quasi "gay agenda" that BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is trying to "convert people to homoesexuality". Sometimes it takes a movie like this which dares to take the risk and tell an unforgettable story rife in visual and emotional power -- true poetry in motion.

All of the actors in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN are flawless, and all of them have roles that in another story might have been bland stereotypes of predictable natures. Jake Gyllenhaal is smoldering longing at the beginning but becomes a broken man who explodes in rage when he realizes that twenty years have gone down the drain. Heath Ledger goes one better: his painful speech, furtive eyes, and inward body language expresses an overwhelming set of emotions which state that he'd never be able to be happy with anyone, and his final scene holding Jack's shirt comes more as an apology to Jack than an added moment of schmaltz. Michelle Williams plays a typical housewife who is witnessing something she can't understand. Linda Cardellini, who comes quite late in the film, initially appears to be just a waitress, but is the person who gives Ennis an advice about love. Anne Hathaway's role as Jack Twist's wife is much more tricky: is she aware of his gayness or is she really all about business and having a perfect home? I get the feeling her character knows more than she expresses, and her turning progressively blonde is a manifestation of her choosing to look the other way and live a life of bitter complacency, best expressed in her telling speech about how "men don't dance with their wives." If she only knew.

492 out of 832 people found the following comment useful :-
Loved it, 6 September 2005

Author: Igster from United Kingdom

I saw this film last night and loved it. It starts off a little bit worryingly - just a bit too brooding. But as it gets going the story takes over and becomes utterly absorbing.

It's a fantastic return to the Ice Storm aesthetic for Ang Lee. Lots of concentration on the minute and the things that aren't said.

Both Jake and Heath are fantastic in it. Quite surprising really. With Jake you think you'll find it hard to shake the his previous iconic roles, well specifically Donnie Darko. But he moves completely beyond that. Likewise Heath Ledger who brings a huge amount of power to a closed-up character who really doesn't that all that much.

All so terribly moving too.

167 out of 226 people found the following comment useful :-
Like a ton of bricks, 14 December 2005

Author: sfgrl from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I saw Brokeback Mountain for the first of what I hope to be many, many times two days ago, and I don't think a minute has passed since the viewing when the film's brilliance hasn't permeated my thoughts. I find myself scouring the Internet, hoping to find anything that will remind of me of this monumental film.

Reading the user comments, I am struck by how many people feel exactly as I feel – like you have been hit like a ton of bricks and unable to stop thinking about it. I had read the short story several times before seeing the movie and thought knowing the story and its sad ending in advance would brace me for the film version. It did not. Instead, I think I was crying ten times as much because I could not bear for Jack and Ennis to meet their terrible fate.

Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhall are magnificent and if not for them (and the incredible work by Ang Lee), I think this film would have been a massive disappointment. Instead, days later, just thinking of Ennis and Jack's stolen embrace and kiss in broad daylight after being apart for four years is enough to make my heart skip a beat and my stomach lurch. Everything about that scene is perfect – Ennis' giddiness as he waits for Jack, how he skips down the stairs, the genuine embrace that quickly gives way to a clinch and kiss that seems to overpower both of them, their efforts to pull one another away from each other and Ennis' reluctance to do so as evidenced by his subtle but oh so honest hand gestures as he turns away from Jack so they can meet Ennis' wife. I've teared up just sitting here at my desk at work.

Heath Ledger's performance is the most amazing thing I've seen in years. I really just wanted to get onto the screen and hug him. Which reminds me of the effectiveness of the Cassie Cartwright character (which I don't believe was in the short story). Here is this man, Ennis Del Mar, who barely says a word and appears mostly downtrodden and at a dead end in his life. And yet, because of the depth and emotion that Heath Ledger is able to infuse into Ennis, this bubbly, outgoing and beautiful woman is completely in love with him. The magic, of course, is that this doesn't seem implausible. I loved Ennis, too. Judging from the audience, we all did. And his inability to reciprocate that love with anybody but the one person he perceives as forbidden is what renders this story among the most heartbreaking I've ever known.

I don't normally write reviews either, as many others have mentioned, but feel obligated to out of the deep sense of gratitude I have for Ang Lee, Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhall, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway and, of course, the genius of the original short story and wonderfully adapted screenplay. This film is an instant classic that will be mentioned in the same sentence as all the great ones. Thank you for the bravery and skill that was exerted for our benefit.

P.S. I am already preparing myself for disappointment come Oscar time, but sincerely hope that BBM sweeps all categories. No other movie came close this year