BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

To reduce it to just a gay love story is to do it a disservice, even though it is one of the finest of those we have. Much like the poetic, literary short story by Annie Proulx it is based on, its provocations are far more complex. The "gay cowboy" premise prompts more vital questions about masculinity than a more heterosexual approach may have, rendered through the visual poetry of Ang Lee's magnificent direction and Rodrigo Prieto's breathtaking cinematography. It's a film where character and landscape are inextricably linked, just as American masculinity is so linked with the American landscape itself. Screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana know this, their extensive experience with the Western genre informing their approach to expanding Proulx's story, that by looking at the love between two men in a hyper-masculine but highly romanticised environment, they have the opportunity to ask what it takes to be a good man, beyond the performance of masculinity that the Cowboy archetype offers.

It's not a stretch to assume that many audiences in 2005 hadn't wholly considered the link between the idea of homosexuality and masculinity, with one often seen as the antithesis and rejection of the other. And yet these two men enact their love affair amidst the iconography of American masculinity, the symbols of John Wayne and the Marlboro Man, the visual language of George Stevens and John Ford. Their love is both highly passionate and highly masculine, their sense of themselves as men leading their courtship and romance, incorporating those symbols of the Cowboy without a hint of irony or fetishisation. That's one of the film's great secret weapons - straight audiences are drawn to the novelty of the "gay cowboy" movie; homosexual audiences by the subversion of it, especially with men as handsome as Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as the lovers in question. And yet it is neither of those things. The novelty or subversion falls away quickly and we're caught up, not only in its beauty but its tragedy.

In his quiet intensity, Innes (Ledger) refuses to be anything other than what he is, a withdrawn and studious young man who has accepted the little life that is all he believes he deserves. In his veracity, Jack (Gyllenhaal) also cannot be anything more than what he is, direct and passionate, bombastic and determined, and led entirely by his heart. On the slopes of Brokeback, they can be themselves in ways that no one else has ever seen them, and that doesn't just mean their sexual attraction. It means themselves in all facets, their hopes and dreams, their defiance as young men, their frustrations at being underestimated and undervalued. They are young men discovering themselves, and in the eyes of the other, they find themselves, and in the eyes of the other, they shimmer. As they move closer and closer, it's as if nature itself is holding its breath, willing it to happen. There are few moments of romantic revelation on film as intense or all-consuming.

In the end, though, Brokeback is a dream, a utopian ideal, a moment where they were nothing but themselves and each other, where the landscape mirrored their intense love for one another, where nothing but the force of nature itself could come between them. Like any ideal, it is built on hope, but like any ideal, it is delicate, so delicate that it cannot hold for long. Their lives will be spent pursuing that ideal, that utopia, that honest manifestation of their love - Innes pursuing it with every disparate moment he can find to be alone with Jack, and Jack pursuing it in his fantasy that one day, Innes will come to him and be his, and his alone. We know they will never recapture it. They know they will never recapture it. That's why the moment of their rupture feels like the end of the world, why Jack's desperate cry of "I wish I knew how to quit you" tears your heart apart, why the flashback to them as young men, embracing as the sun goes down makes the world stand still. Their love is doomed, as queer love in cinema before 2005 often was, but it isn't doomed by violence or sickness. It is doomed because there is no other way. The dream is delicate, and they live in an indelicate world.

This is where the presence of their wives, Alma (Michelle Williams) and Lureen (Anne Hathaway), becomes vital. They aren't simply obstacles placed in the way of their relationship but victims of it. So much of the film expresses the importance of authenticity to a healthy masculine identity, and in both cases, Innes and Jack enter their marriages inauthentically. This has nothing, I would argue, to do with their sexuality. The actual sexuality of Innes and Jack is completely immaterial - all that matters is their love for one another, and the film certainly suggests that both marriages at least also begin from a place of attraction. But these men are lying to, and arguably, using these women to escape from the truth of something. This is why the phone conversation between Innes and Lureen at the film's climax is so horrifying, and why Alma's realisation of the affair between her husband and this man she's never met is so devastating. Social structures have forced these men to trap themselves in these marriages, but they have chosen the shape their prisons will take. Their wives are never given that choice. They are lied to, and when the lie is revealed, it breaks them apart.

This brings a necessary ugliness in these characters, especially Innes, the film's centre of gravity. Despite being our romantic lead, his treatment of Alma falls into spousal abuse, both in his aggression towards her and his dismissal of her. He is driven by such a palpable self-hatred, his actions a wanton form of self-punishment, and his frustrations at being stuck in this little life are taken out entirely on Alma rather than Jack. Jack is the ideal, but Alma is the reality, but right when you expect the film to side with Innes, Ang Lee holds us on Alma, isolates her within the frame, carefully charting her disintegration. Michelle Williams is, one could argue, the absolute tragic heart of 'Brokeback Mountain', while Anne Hathaway, in her climactic scene, emerges as its white-hot anger, a sudden jolt of realisation in contrast to Alma's slow, meticulous dismantling.

That 'Brokeback Mountain' should be a tragedy is inevitable - its setting leaves almost no other option - but it never feels like the film is falling into that tired trope of queer characters always being destined for death and destruction. It has too much integrity for that. One would expect the film to lead to a cataclysmic emotional rupture, but again, Ang Lee holds fast. At the revelation of Jack's death, you expect the film to crack. At Innes' discovery in Jack's childhood bedroom, you expect it. Even until its final moments, the film never brings release, never allows it, never indulges in cheap catharsis. This is the final, heartbreaking truth of 'Brokeback Mountain', that there is no space for these men to fall apart. Innes' world has come to an end, and yet he must hold what little he has of it together, whether that be what is left of his relationship with his children or the memory of the man he loved. This is perhaps the most profound and moving statement the film makes on what it is to live as a queer person. Pain, loss and frustration may seem inevitable, but what we do is endure. We endure the worst the universe has to throw at us, refuse to crumble and give up right at the point where to crumble seems the only option. Maybe that's because those losses, for us, are a cumulative beauty. Any moment of genuine emotional connection comes with such danger, and each one feels as unlikely as the last. And this makes them precious, incandescent, shimmering. So we hold onto them, with gentle hands, and let them guide us through each day and into the next. "Jack, I swear..."

Nothing was the same after 'Brokeback Mountain'. It broke through something that seemed unbreakable. Queer stories have become a part of the mainstream, and at their best, preserve their necessary subversion. And it feels, in every case, that you can trace that lineage back to the moment where two cowboys fell in love against the backdrop of the rugged American landscape. 'Moonlight', 'Carol', 'Call Me By Your Name', 'God's Own Country', 'Weekend', 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire', 'Heartstopper', 'I Saw The TV Glow', 'Monster', 'All Of Us Strangers', these and many, many, many, many more exist because of this film, this quiet and gentle film. And yet, as much as cinema and television have embraced queer storytelling, 'Brokeback Mountain' still feels like a revelation, as close to perfection as might be possible for a film, as close to miraculous as might be possible for a film. There is still just nothing like it, nothing like its humanity or generosity or care or compassion. It renders our existence undeniable, our capacity for love undeniable, our capacity to endure undeniable. What it has done for all of us, for all queer people, is, and always will be, undeniable.

Few films, achingly few, change the world. 'Brokeback Mountain' is one of them.