"'Brokeback Mountain': where cowboys, directors dare"

Ang Lee has gone with "Brokeback Mountain" where no major filmmaker has dared.

Homosexuality has become a topic of increasing social concern in the last few years, but aside from Gus Van Sant's "My Own Private Idaho," it has largely been ignored.

The key to "Brokeback Mountain's" success is that it addresses social issues discretely, with its eyes tilted towards its boots.

Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger of "A Knight's Tale") and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal of "Donnie Darko") are assigned to tend to a flock of sheep on Brokeback Mountain over the course of a summer in 1963. They are sent to the mountain alone, with no other human contact for months. They suffer horrible weather and extreme conditions together.

Their timid-but-masculine friendship soon becomes a passionate romance. After the summer is over, they return to their respective hometowns and begin living separately. They each get married and have children, but meet for secret affairs on what they tell their families are fishing trips.

The story illuminates homosexual relationships by clouding the contrast between homosexuals and heterosexuals. Ennis and Jack both claim, after their first sexual encounter, that they are not "queer." There is no explanation as to why Ennis and Jack feel how they do for each other, aside from their many forms of isolation. Companionship drives them together when they each have no one else.

Annie Proulx's story, in written form, seems informed by a fascination with base masculinity. "Brokeback" is an interesting inverse of "Memoirs of a Geisha," based on a book written by a man about feminine subject matter.

Homosexuality is one topic. Cowboy homosexuality in Wyoming and Texas 40 years ago is quite another. There couldn't be much more man in this story. The women fall by the wayside. And so there is a deliberate emphasis on what would seem rugged to the average person-breaking horses, swilling whiskey and living by campfires-but is simply everyday life to Ennis and Jack and everyone around them.

The caustic conditions strip the characters down to their emotional framework, rather than toughen them up. The exposure to the elements Ennis and Jack suffer on Brokeback relates directly to their attraction. As it gets colder, they grow closer to compensate.

"Brokeback Mountain" is sparse in dialogue, filled with awkward silences and truths left unsaid. Ennis and Jack live a painful secret together, often violently. Ennis fights strangers, not always winning, in what seems to be an expression of the rage he feels with himself and the society he fears. Jack and Ennis fight each other, even in sex, confusing Freud's two favorite topics.

There is something difficult to elucidate in the situation that neither character has the capacity to understand. Two men already tortured by feelings of isolation are only going to compound those feelings by seeking in each other a relationship society condemns. Proulx and Lee do an admirable job of not making this point for them and leaving this lack of understanding to do its worst.

Getting down to performances, Ledger does a great job punching and mumbling his way through the Ennis role. Not a drop of melodrama, but good heartfelt responses to the action. Gyllenhaal, however, is a bit spotty. Jack's excitable nature is a necessary contrast to Ennis, but Gyllenhaal takes that excitement to embarrassing levels. Other parts of his performance are splendid. He effectively portrays the struggle to repress, or at least cope with his homosexual needs.

Director Ang Lee has perhaps the most baffling trajectory of any director working today. The transition from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" to "Hulk" was odd in itself. Adding "Brokeback Mountain" to that succession makes it even more difficult to define his style, which is a testament to his talent as a filmmaker. These are three remarkably diverse films, each well done, even if "The Hulk" was nothing special.

This film is a relatively safe, mainstream segue into imperative social commentary. It avoids direct criticism of today's society by taking place decades ago. Nonetheless, a film starring two attractive, A-list actors as lovers is a step forward-even if Ledger did have to re-establish his masculinity by immediately following-up "Brokeback" with "Casanova."

With the conservative revival imbuing absolute morality back into the mainstream, allowing films like "The Passion of the Christ" and "Chronicles of Narnia" to become box office honeys, it's great to see a morally ambiguous story brought to the forefront.