A triumphant love story

There are typical love stories and then there are actual love stories. Every once in a great while, someone makes an actual love story into a film. Ang Lee's ("The Ice Storm," "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon") "Brokeback Mountain" is the type of actual love story that might leave you breathless. \nLee has been a filmmaking acrobat from day one of his directing career, leaping from genre to genre with the fluidity of a professional gymnast. His films have explored people in love in different eras, countries and social circumstances. He has been successful because he has attempted to show the nature of love by focusing on characters and their individual stories, making them real and complex. "Brokeback Mountain" is triumphantly his best love story to date and the best film of the year. \nThe film observes the lives of two men, ranch hands Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist. Jack and Ennis meet in the beginning of the summer of 1963, after they are hired to watch and herd sheep in a remote Wyoming mountain.\nThere is an early scene in which the two cowboys are idling around a campfire after sunset and the conversation turns to the more withdrawn Ennis. After telling Jack some of the more important details of his life, Jack remarks that Ennis hasn't spoken that much in two weeks, and Ennis replies, "That's more than I've spoken in two years." In that moment, we understand how they begin to fall in love, and how difficult it will be for them both.\nThrough the course of the summer, they come to know each other as people and this leads to an undeniable attraction. Their first sexual encounter is liquor-fueled and desperate, and leaves both feeling a sense of unexplainable guilt. Soon, however, they accept their mutual feelings for one another and agree to keep their affair to themselves and Brokeback Mountain.\nWhen their summer is over, they continue the lives they had before. The story is honest, and therefore shows the men in the imperfect lives they force themselves to lead. They marry and have kids, as they believe they should. \nThey miss each other too much to stay apart however and, through the years, they continue their relationship by meeting two or three times a year, always on Brokeback and in secret. \nAs Jack Twist, Jake Gyllenhaal is sensitive and naïve at times, the more charismatic of the two. His performance is very good, and he plays well off Heath Ledger's Ennis, delivering some of the most powerful lines in the film.\nHowever, the most stunning performance of the year belongs to Ledger, as the strong and willful Ennis. He disappears entirely into the role, affecting the voice, manner and absolutely sad nature of the character. This is the role of a lifetime, and Ledger is brilliant in it. \nAs I watched this film, I was reminded of the adage, "whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger." For this story, that "whatever" is the secret these men have to keep. Having to live without the love of your life is sad, but is tragic when it's because the world won't accept that love for what it is.