I Wish I Knew How To Quit You: Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Aside from a ton of the classics included in this month of westerns, I was fairly grounded about my wanting to include Brokeback Mountain amongst the list, primarily because I would strongly defend is placement within the genre, considering the setting and characters of the film, although it is a blatant revision of the tradition in a fresh and much needed manner.  I also wanted to justify its inclusion on the list because it had been a shame gap in my viewing, despite being told that it was a phenomenal work, although that should have been of little surprise considering that it is from the masterful Ang Lee whose varied film career reflect and individual who deeply concerns himself with challenging his own limitations, while also considering deeply personal experiences in the process.  Like his earlier works, The Ice Storm in particular, Brokeback Mountain manages to be a modest production with a grand social statement, one that is as much an indictment of American traditionalism in the face of fear mongering as it is a consideration on the nature of love, desire and intimate friendship.  I will admit that given its release date as being prior to my eventual appreciation for cinema on a large scale, I had allowed the reputation of the film to proceed itself and had foolishly believed that it would simply be a highly exploitative consideration of the experiences of two gay ranch hands.  Of course, I realized my misguided preconceived notions were wrong rather quickly, as Lee manages to make a highly romantic, sensual and passionate film that causes even the most calloused of viewer to root for the struggles of the main characters.  Furthermore, Lee does not shy away from the very real tragedies that emerge when an unaccepted love narrative emerges, showing the physical and emotional toll on those both directly and tangentially involved in something that is pure and unbridled, doing so to near Shakespearean proportions.  Each minimalist guitar strum pushes the narrative closer and closer to breaking of the dam of stoicism, eventually releasing into a deluge of emotions in what easily has to be one of cinema's most heart wrenching sequences of the past ten years.  For people who assume that Brokeback mountain is a irrelevant Oscar bait picture, I strongly urge you to revisit it and all it has to offer, I am sure you will come to realize that there is a lot going on in the magnificent work.

Brokeback Mountain begins during the summer of 1963 when two struggling ranch hands agree to take work from Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid) herding sheep in Wyoming.  The men Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhal) come from broken homes, Ennis having little recollection of his parents after their death at a young age, while Jack has a tenuous relationship at best, something that allows them to bond, despite both loathing the work involved with ranching.  During a night of drunkenness the two engage in intercourse, an act that is cause for hesitation, mainly for Ennis who has a wife and children at home to care for, although he admits to possessing strong feelings for Jack.  Upon the end of their trip Ennis returns to his wife then fiancé Alma (Michelle Williams) and gets married, while Jack settles down with a local beauty and cowgirl named Lureen (Anne Hathaway).  After a handful of years pass, Ennis receives a postcard from Jack asking to visit with him and perhaps go on a fishing trip, to which he responds with elation and the two instantly rekindle their relationship, which is found out by Alma who accidentally catches them kissing.  Life proves to become difficult for both men, when Alma and Ennis eventually get divorced, while Jack struggles to assert his authority to his wealthy father-in-law, while facing the realization that he cannot make it as a rodeo star.  The two continue their meetings, until Ennis begins a relationship with Cassie (Linda Cardenelli), while Jack presumably begins another relationship with the husband of one of Lureen's friends.  During yet another trip, Ennis attempts to change the date of their next meeting, which results in a heated debate and hateful words being spouted towards one another and they both leave on bad terms.  More time passes and Ennis attempts to write to Jack only to receive a return card informing him that he is deceased.  This discovery causes Ennis to contact Lureen who says that he died in a freak side of the road repair accident, although Ennis knows that it was a result of a violent hate crime.  In an attempt to obtain his ashes, Ennis visits Jack's parents, taking with him some of Jack's clothing, a possession he caries with him and clearly uses as a point of influence in his decisions, particulalry in the closing moments of the film when he approves of his daughters impending marriage contingent on her assuring him that he is doing so out of love.

Brokeback Mountain, like many of the films discussed this month is not entirely a western in the traditional sense, nor does it ever offer itself as something that would be definitively genre.  However, Lee, pulling from the short by Diana Ossana, realizes the power and sway of the western mythology, particularly for masculinity within the midwest.  The film is set in the sixties, therefore, men of the era would have grown up with the rough and tumble images of Robert Mitchum and John Wayne and been rather familiar with the work of Howard Hawks, and just in case viewers would be uncertain of this, Lee includes scenes of the characters at drive-in movie theaters enjoying films and aware of a cultural landscape outside their respective towns.  The masculinity is something both Ennis and Jack manage to maintain, especially since they have chosen to raise families in a conservative word, while Ennis is particularly skilled at asserting his own male prowess, as is obvious in the fireworks scene, Jack is at constant odds with his own feelings of inferiority, seeking fulfillment through rodeos only to realize that he can assert himself when he is being bullied, even if indirectly, as is the case when his father-in-law has a spout during Thanksgiving concerning a football game on television.  The masculinity in this film is performed and to varying degrees so to is femininity performed, particularly with Alma who attempts to feign ignorance to Ennis's fishing trips and their true meaning in order to maintain a structured household.  What is not performed however is feelings of love and passion, while it seems initially as though Jack and Ennis will have a fleeting, purely physical relationship, as their feeling grow over time it is evidence that love is far greater than any need for sexual gratification, particularly when it is revealed that Ennis finds Jack's involvement with other men to be infidelity.  Were it to purely be physical he would have, undoubtedly, accepted it as par for the course.  Lee also realizes the very fragile nature of sexuality in an America going into the Cold War and suggest that many partnerships between a heterosexual couple could have easily been out of necessity and mutual friendship, Alma even offers at one point to return to a marriage with Ennis as long as he will admit to his sexual identity.   Unfortunately, even when the notion of queerness is indirectly expressed it is faced with mocking and fear, resulting in the death of Jack.  The death and murder have no rational explanation, aside from an act of hatred, much like the challenging, yet powerful scenes in Boys Don't Cry.  Brokeback Mountain wants viewers to not only accept the natural and organic love between same sex partners, but to also reflect on what cultural venues have led to the demonizing and emasculation of those who do not engage in heteronormative behavior.

Key Scene:  While it may be obvious the scene when Ennis visits Jack's room is easily the most heart breaking moment of the entire film and will have even the most dismissive of viewer reconsidering the depth of true love.

This is an important film in many ways and will only prove relevant in decades to come, I strongly urge you to grab a copy and watch it immediately.

There Cannot Be True Despair Without Hope: The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

So I am admittedly pretty late to this film as far as the blogging game is concerned, considering that pretty much ever non-classical oriented blog I follow touched upon this film within days of its release.  I am also open in not being entirely thrilled with Christopher Nolan as a director, although I am more than willing to offer him praise for his cinematic grandiosity and willingness to try for something big every time, more than a few of my friends and fellow cinephiles are remiss to even offer him that much praise.  The Dark Knight has become somewhat of a cult film, not that it was lacking a huge acclaim, but the death of Heath Ledger seems to have cemented it as a bit transcendent of traditional film criticisms and considerations, not very different from what James Dean's death has seemed to do for Rebel Without A Cause.  The Dark Knight Rises, thus had some rather incredible expectations to film, mostly revolving around a demand that the villian prove equatable or grander than that of Ledger's Joker, a task that was doomed from the start, considering that on paper and in performance The Joker at least relating to The Dark Knight truly is something rare in cinema, on the same level as your Tyler Durden's and your Monsieur Hulot's all be it in a different genre and via a different manifestation.  Detached from all I know about this trilogy and my own personal relationship with the films of Christopher Nolan I am not entirely opposed to what viewers are given in what is assumedly the final installment for this particular manifestation of "The Batman."  Sure it suffers from some plot cohesion throughout and certainly throws special effects and the tools of melodrama into those voids, but the exceptional acting on the part of all involved, not to mention Tom Hardy who gives a performance equal to that of Heath Ledger, even if the awful choice for Bane's voice manages to throw it off a bit.  The film, even if Nolan denies its validity, invariably focuses on a heavy bit of political rhetoric and goes a long way to show that just because a film engages with a large viewership does not necessarily mean that it needs to dumb its material down or offer traditional roles.

So where does this particular installation of The Dark Knight Trilogy pick up, well we are shown a Gotham City still reeling from the loss of their long deceased knight in shining armor political figure Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), while the city seems on the verge of complete cleanup from criminal activity, even if Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) seems to demand a cautious eye be kept on the streets.  Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has decided against retaining his role of Batman, primarily because the alias has become the scapegoat for Dent's death, instead; living a life as a recluse and fending off attempted robberies by a catlike female burglar named Selena (Anne Hathaway).  Meanwhile Bruce Wayne's shrinking wealth has lead to the freezing of funds towards an orphanages where Officer Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)  a "hotheaded" policeman found shelter as a child, leading him to come into the world of Wayne Enterprises, which also happens to be the company at odds with tycoon Daggett (Ben Mendelshon) seems rearing to overtake, going so far as to request the help of superhuman escaped convict Bane (Tom Hardy) in his endeavors.  Bane, however, has his own set of plans which involve breaking Batman and his place of power in Gotham City, in the process attempting to return power to the hands of its people, in a marshall law form of political and societal rule. While the narrative deals with these emerging issues, as well as Officer Blake's attempts to find his own identity within his role as law enforcer, Bruce Wayne struggles with how best to reemerge as The Batman, especially since to do so assures his being apprehended by law enforcement.  Eventually, though the aid of Selena, who by now is clearly to be Catwoman, he is able to encounter Bane, who does indeed break Wayne's back and locks him at the bottom of a prison, from where he escaped by climbing out of after some time.  Upon emergence from the prison, Wayne returns to full-on Batman mode coming to the point of having Bane in his death grips only to discover that the true enemy was much closer at hand than even he realized.  Bane and his group have managed to set a large scale nuclear bomb to explode in the city and it is up to Batman to sacrifice himself to assure its detonation far from Gotham City, a task that leads to his assumed death, but if the closing moments of the film suggest anything, his legacy is far from over.

I could afford this portion of my post to discussing the political elements of The Dark Knight Rises, but this seems to be a considerably contentious ground to cross and the readings I would favor have been done to a heavy degree, although I was rather fond of this one, even though I am not entirely committed to the more Christian inclined elements of the argument.  Instead, however, I want to consider the philosophy of despair and notions of imprisonment that seem to help manifest the character of Bane, who is half-Nietzche and half-Camus in his rhetoric.  The notions of hope and despair, at least in the way Bane visualizes them seem straight out of the texts of Beyond Good and Evil, in so much that he seems to suggest for good to exist there must also be bad and vice versa, except Bane applies these ideas directly to finding a way to maneuver through darkness, something he believes Batman has taken for granted, yet he also shows Batman that it is his own ties to the light (i.e. goodness) that seem to make him so susceptible to weakness, clearly making specific reference to his deep loss earlier in life, as well as years earlier with the loss of his love interest.  Bane too is interesting because he seems to thrive off of despair, yet one cannot ignore that he lives within a exoskeleton that helps him ignore physical pain on a large scale, thus freeing his mind to deal with his own existential woes, ones transcendent of the physical.  As for the notion of climbing out of a seemingly inescapable prison one cannot help but consider Camus' Myth of Sisyphus in where a man is cursed to push a boulder up and down between two hills for eternity never achieving any progress.  The climb out of this prison proves similar not in that it results in Wayne's being returned to the bottom, but that he realizes that the prison is only a small scale of the climb that he must make within Gotham City or even his own personal life, something that is endless, until it is of course interrupted by "death."  The prison too does help to conceptualize Nietzsche in that it creates an oppressed group of lesser "bad" individuals who are separated from the good and suppressed not through the panoptic gaze of traditional prison setups but through their assumption that their is some good in the world, yet their badness makes it out of reach and only an impossible vision to obtain.  This assumption of obtaining goodness/freedom is enough to keep most prisoners dwelling at its bottom, although when an individual does break out it proves, as is the case with The Dark Knight Rises, to completely throw notions of darkness and light into complete chaos.  Mind you this film is nearly three hours long so my apologies for missing any major key points in my brief synopsis.

Key Scene:  As over-claimed as it may be, the football stadium scene is so cinematic and surprisingly detached for most moments from either Bane or Batman that it almost seems out of place in the film.  Yet, certain statements and events bring viewers back to its very real attachment to Gotham City.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable film and hopefully a praiseworthy completion to a sound trilogy.  Of course, we cannot be for sure where this particular vision of the franchise will go as the ending opened up possibilities for Robin becoming a fixture of Gotham City as seen by Nolan.  Rent it or buy it depending on your preference for blockbuster films.

Welcome To The Graveyard Of Ambition: One Day (2011)

I assumed that since I was enamored with Lone Scherfig's previous offering An Education that by default I would also enjoy her newest work One Day.  When the film began the title cards and minimalist cinematography seemed to assure this film to be one that I would enjoy, however, as the film paced along it slowly became apparent that it was nothing like An Education, but instead a rather underwhelming film.  It does not lack from excellent acting, but from something missing, the characters are never fully developed and are unbelievable, they just appear to drift through the film without evolution or self-realization.  In fact, the characters are only believable in their first few scenes, before it becomes painfully clear that they phoned the entire thing in.   Sadly, I cannot comprehend why such a failure occurred, given that I like the director involved and both actors playing the lead roles, therefore, my next place of blame went to David Nicholls and his writing, yet that seems not to be the problem.  Instead, I can only posit that it is one of those rare occasions in which too many good things come together resulting in a film that looses focuses by simply displaying what it has good to offer, without having a set of checks and balances to assure the quality of the good.  One Day is a dud of a film that sparks with a quick flare only to die out uninspiringly.

One Day, as the title suggests, follows a couple who become romantically involved during the night and morning following their college graduation.  The couple, like any good romantic drama, are complete opposites.  First is the bookish and reserved Emma (Anne Hathaway) who appears to have her future planned in great detail and the sly and suave Dexter (Jim Sturgess) who throws caution to the wind and plans to let his future unfold as fate sees fit.  The two after drinking and finding each other absolutely fascinating, as friends, agree to keep in contact, and meet as often as they can on the same day each year.  The first few years find Dexter in great success, while Emma hits a wall of reality that places her working at a Mexican restaurant while she attempts to jump start her writing career.  As time passes, Dexter's mom passes away and he has trouble dealing with his delusional life full of drugs and random sexual encounters, while Emma settles with a local aspiring comedian and undertakes teaching at a local school.  Both Emma and Dexter begin to drift through life, taking turns pursuing one another, as they realize that their only source of happiness comes from their togetherness.  After much strife, and a complete downward spiral the two are finally able to reconnect and marry almost immediately.  Things seem great until Emma is fatally hit by a bus, which leads Dexter into another spiral of self-destruction.  However, after a rare heart-to-heart with his father he realizes that to honor Emma he must actually continue life to the fullest.  The film then closes in a flashback of the couple's first encounter in which they almost engage in romantic acts, only to be blocked by Dexter's parents.  It implies that their relationship could have begun more than twenty years earlier, if not for the tragedy of life getting in the way.


I really struggled to find a critical approach to One Day, mostly because I found myself so detached from the movie as a whole.  As such, it seems that the best thing I can offer is a blanket critique of the film's reaffirming of heteronormative relationships.  It is a mainstream romantic drama that offers nothing fresh or unusual to the study of a relationship, when you compare this film to something like Gus Van San'ts Restless or Spike Lee's Jungle Fever; it seems like a terribly traditional film.  I am not dismissing all films that focus on heteronormative filmmaking, as it was the only acceptable format for romantic images for much of filmic history.  However, with a film in 2011 it can be said that to display an entire film that involves normal relationships is regressive.  I understand that the film is based on a previous literary work, but Scherfig could certainly use her own poetic license to insert a relationship that pushes boundaries.  In fact, the only relationship that is unconventional is the one between Dexter's parents given that his mother has cancer, but even this is not a point of unconventional narrative.  This ailment while crippling does not necessitate the film to be about a love between a handicapped person and a fully able person, even this touch would have helped to detract from the normalcy.  Ultimately, this never happens, and is a plausible explanation as to why the film is so unwatchable.

One Day is a sold 3 star movie as far as Netflix is concerned.  Unless you are an unwavering Anne Hathaway fan there is really no reason to watch this film.  I would suggest Scherfig's An Education over this without waiver.