“断背山”英文观后感
The director Ang Lee's real intention is to awaken the hiding affection deep inside people's heart. “This kind of affection is transcended nationality, beyond space, time, race and even sex. It is unique.” (David, Larry) Jack and Ennis's love is unique too. How to express such a complex human affection? Ang Lee's using different kinds of shots makes it.
“Brokenback Mountain is a movie completely uses a traditional way to shot.” (David, Larry) In the beginning, the beautiful scenery of vast sky, endless mountains, flocks of sheep, silent forest and clean river, gives the audience a feeling of pure and fresh. It gives the audience the power to forgive and tolerate. Thus the most natural affection is unearthed. Fascinated by the frames, the audience may neglect the homosexual point of view. With the development of the plot, people fall in the affection of the two young men. It seems that their love is just a force of nature, not that disgusting as common saying.
There is a symbol shot in the beginning. Ennis goes to graze in the morning the day after their impulsive love, he finds a dying sheep lying on the ground. This shot has two meanings. Obviously the sheep is attacked by a wolf according to plot. It also implied that the unorthodox love between Jack and Ennis will be ruined as the dead sheep. In that situation, seeing this sheep will give a heavy blow on Ennis's heart.
Jack and Ennis's separating after the end of gaze makes people grieved. Ennis seems calm and quiet. When Jack's car driving far away, Ennis staggers along and squats to a corner. At the corner of nobody, he can't control his sorrow to beats the wall and wails. The film uses a deathful silence and an outbreak power to draw people's sympathy to this man of few words. To Ennis, he can't stay with Jack because of social pressure. He just hides his love deep inside. Compared to Jack, Ennis's love may be much deeper. But he stumbles all his life, dodging his real aspiration for love.
There is a shot, when Jack's wife tells Ennis that Jack is died because of tyre breaking, Ennis sees a picture that Jack was attacking by others. This is easy to mislead the audience to think that Jack is beaten to death. Actually it's just Ennis's illusion because he thinks all homosexuality will have bad ending. When he was young, Ennis's father let him see a gay's miserable death. Jack's death makes him recall that scene. Through this misleading shot, it forms a kind of sorrowful and dread atmosphere.
There are a couple of repeated shots. After the death of Jack, Ennis goes to Jack's home. He finds Jack's remains-two sets together of shirt with blood. His expression is very sorrowful when he holds the T-shirts to his chest. At the end of the movie, old Ennis stands before the T-shirts which witness their love, saying “I swear.” These two pictures have the same image. But there is something different. In the first one Jack's T-shirt covers Ennis's, while in the second picture it is in the other way round. What's this small change means? As time goes on, old Ennis finally realizes how precious Jack's love is. He breaks the bandage of the society and accepts Jack's love. Ennis's putting his T-shirt outside of Jack's symbolizes that his way of love is changed. Absolutely this repeated image is the most moving part which leads the audience to endless aftertastes.
“Beautiful, poetic, mournful, at once rich and spare, Brokenback Mountain takes a daring conceit and creates of it an overwhelming work of art that should speak to anyone capable of love.” (Shawn) Ang Lee uses different kinds of shots to create a great love story. With the moving of shots, audience's emotion will change with the pace of movie. When people shed their tears at the end of the movie, they find they are shocking by the love itself, totally forgotten that they are bound by the common customs. A natural affection shows unintentionally. That is the function of movie. And it is the change of shot that makes it.
Brokenback Mountain is full of contrasting-sense and sensibility, individual and society, family and ethics. Ang Lee uses shots to express something that doesn't tell in the movie. However, those seem not exist or vague images are the point that can help us to understand the deep meaning of a movie.
Ang Lee discovers informal things in formal objects. “He unearths the most authentic affection in the real world. Love has not right or wrong.”( Liangpei Zhang) “I love you”， only because it is you, none of sex's business. Gay love is an eternal topic, it needs people's comprehension. In reality, gay lives a miserable and hard life. Brokenback Mountain is not just a movie tells a gay love story, it has a larger and wider importance. It makes people thinking, accepting their love and treating them normally. Just as Ang Lee said : “Brokenback Mountain produced a considerable impact on American culture and morality. This is value of the movie.”
