Wednesday, January 25, 2006

View from the Brokeback Mountain - Love is a Force of Nature


brokeback 1, originally uploaded by Yiling Liu.


I went to see this movie the first day when it was released in Taiwan. Before the movie, I have read the book, written by Annie Proulx, in both English and Chinese translation.

The feeling was amazing. I did not feel too touching instantly while I read the book. But the feeling started to ferment after I close the book. Something like small ants crawling along my skin, and further getting into my blood. The pain was just biting out my heart. It was the next day after I finished the book; I was in the office working without my mind but unbearable tears.

Is it so-called the imaged power of Brokeback Mountain?

Then I went to the movie.

I carefully watched and digested each plot in the film, and silently compared the differences between the original and the adapted. Nothing seems too awkward in the film, but Ang Lee made Proulx's work much more presentable, and told the audience what was not released in the book in an untraceable way.

The imaged power came again. I started to weep and eventually cry after walking out of the theater. The night folded in with cold wind, and moonlight was covered with thin clouds. The street was quiet. I was touched by a long-lost love story, not because of the forbidden gay love, but for the dedicated feeling in everyone's heart that somehow never be fulfilled just because of the moral concerns ruled by others.

"This is no one else’s business but ours." Jack said.

However, so many people like to make other's business theirs.

As the subtitle of the movie poster: Love is a Force of Nature.

When it comes from the human nature, from the bottom of the fair heart, how can you ignore it and push it away?

The love between Ennis and Jack was long folded in the shirts, which was hung in Jack's closet but found by Ennis, and the memory of sweetness were left forever in the Brokeback Mountain.

I don't think this movie was intended to initiate some issues to discuss, however, it does awake the social conscious to some extend.

For those who have not seen this movie, I do like recommending give it a try. You don't have to bow for the gay love, but the scene of nature and the true voice from the bottom of the heart will eventually embrace you.

That's what Annie Proulx wrote about the frontier life of cowboy, that's how Ang Lee made it in front of our eyes.