Thursday, December 29, 2005

Brokeback Mountain, Etc.


Hope you all had a fabulous Christmas/Hanukkah! Along with It's a Wonderful Life and White Christmas, I managed to watch several of my favorite adaptations over the holiday weekend including A Christmas Carol, A Room with a View, and Enchanted April. Just as with E.M. Forster's novel, I try to watch the film every so often because it never fails to inspire. I also saw Brokeback Mountain last night and it was incredible. Everything you've heard about this adaptation is true. The performances are remarkable. While Ang Lee’s film, based on an achingly wonderful short story by Annie Proulx, is breaking new ground by portraying a long-term affair between two men, the true appeal in the story is the agonizing pain of lovers who are forced apart by social and family pressure just as the most famous fictional star-crossed lovers in history, Romeo and Juliet. The film retains the intimacy of the short story while also managing to make it larger than life. It's one of the best and most moving films I've seen in ages. (Oh and Casanova is cute--a bit like Shakespeare in Love only without the clever dialogue--but Sienna Miller puts me to sleep.) --Kim

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