Ang Lee
Brokeback Mountain

It is a well-known fact that 99.9% of Christmas gifts (at least for myself) are useless knick-knacks that inevitably end up either in the trash, in a landfill, or rotting in a dusty drawer: in theory, this fate should have also befallen this DVD that was gifted to me by a cousin of mine for Christmas in 2007; perhaps to annoy me, was my first thought when I unwrapped the package; the fact is that, once I thanked my benefactor with some plastic smiles and some pleasantry like, "how nice, I will definitely watch it!" I put the gift in a drawer of my room, and there it remained for almost an entire year, until one gray autumn afternoon, rummaging through my things in search of junk to send to the landfill, I found myself holding the DVD of "Brokeback Mountain" that I had almost forgotten I had and, finally, I decided that the moment to take it out of its case had finally arrived.

I still remember when this film came out in 2005, sparking a media frenzy of considerable proportions and, both because I have always had an instinctive aversion to everything particularly exposed by the media, and because at the time I was 15 years old and was little more than a child not at all immune to certain inherited prejudices, the idea of going to see it at the cinema did not even remotely cross my mind; in short, I could never have imagined at the time that it would become my favorite film: yes, because "Brokeback Mountain" manages to tell the story of its two protagonists, Ennis and Jack, in an absolutely clear and neutral manner: the meeting, the friendship that slowly transforms into love, the separation and the return to everyday life, the reunion and the thousand difficulties and frustrations of a story that, born in a closed and conservative environment like the mid-west of the 60s and 70s, is destined to remain confined in secrecy, until reaching the bitter conclusion, everything is narrated without embellishments, pity or moralism of any kind: this, perhaps, is the element that makes the difference: "Brokeback Mountain" is not a "fairy tale," the characters are not caricatures, stereotypes, or idealized figures but real people, each with their own personality, strengths, and weaknesses, wonderfully played by great actors like the prematurely departed Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, and the marvelous Anne Hathaway (my all-time favorite actress), and it is not yet another cloying American dream where everything ends well and they all live happily ever after, it is simply a love story told with grace and pathos, without ever glossing over the rough and edgy aspects.

Among the elements that make the film even more special are certainly the settings, especially the mountains (the Big Horn Mountains, not far from Yellowstone Park, although in reality they are the Canadian Rockies, in Alberta) with their untouched nature and fascinating and majestic landscapes, and a stunning soundtrack, enhanced by beautiful songs like "The Devil's Right Hand", "No One's Gonna Love You Like Me", "King Of The Road" by Roger Miller, "He Was A Friend Of Mine", wonderfully performed by Willie Nelson and "A Love That Will Never Grow Old", a poignant ballad specially composed by Argentine musician Gustavo Santaolalla with lyrics by Bernie Taupin and sung by the famous country singer Emmylou Harris; in short, a masterpiece within a masterpiece that makes this film entirely deserving of all the success it has had, the media attention, the Oscars, the Golden Lions, and all the other accolades: it is a film I warmly recommend watching, not only for its intrinsic beauty but also because watching it could prove to be a very instructive experience; at least it was for me.