Brokeback

Far be it from me to agree with anything Peter Goers writes, but I commend his review of Brokeback Mountain to you in The Sunday Mail ( not available online but on page 34). Quite a good piece of writing. His point? That this is a story of frustrated love not of homosexuality.
I would agree, and obviously the viewing public has discerned this too. The audience when I saw it on Friday afternoon was like any Friday arvo group. No screaming queens or closet gays ( in so far as you can tell) rather a predominance of women and older mixed couples. An audience more like Love Story than like a gay flick. I don't imagine that's what the audience for Capote will look like!
What do I think of it? It is beautifully shot. Like his other movie I love, Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" is simply beautiful. Brokeback is too. The scenery of the high Wyoming Mountains makes you want be there. Nothing like it in Oz so far as I can tell.
Set that against the bleakness of Annie Proulx's story,(not quite as bleak as The Shipping News) poverty, unemployment and loveless relationships and there is a remarkable counterpoint set up.
It is sad on many fronts. Tender on others. And raises, but does not attempt to answer I think, a whole range of difficult questions about relationships. Principally what do you do when you settle for a substitute rather than the real thing.
It's worth going to see.
I don't think Ledger is really Oscar material in this film, though his painful shyness is palpable. I loved his 10 things I hate about you but that little amusement is trivial beside the import of Brokeback