Brokeback Mountain

Aroview: A 'cause celebre' of recent cinema, this epic romantic drama is set around the terse and smouldering long-term love affair between two cowboys (Ledger and Gyllenhaal) tending the boundary lines and cattle herds in 1960s Wyoming.

Adapted from the story by E. Annie Proulx, dir. Lee constructs a masterful, if overlong, account of passion frustrated by social constraints, as each man follows the path of conventionality, marrying and raising families over the decades, while still retaining their own melancholy bond. Set against the ironically open vistas of the American northwest, this easily slips the tag of 'gay Western' and provides a compelling story and two exceptional lead performances, which vibrate with inarticulate vulnerability and suppressed passion.

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