Garoo

Jack (just like Titanic!) and Ennis, young Far West cow-boys who actually herd sheep in the 1960s Wyoming, work a summer alone in the mountain, have sex, and come back to normal life. Or do they.

I think it’s the first time I’m ever counted in the release morning’s Paris box office (those numbers that aren’t representative of anything but the buzz that promoted the movie, but end up deciding of the rest of its life in the whole country), and I’m obviously satisfied that it’s happened for Brokeback Mountain — I’m such a militant, I can go to the movies at eleven in the morning, when tickets are half the price.

Trouble is, I’m now supposed to write a review. And that won’t be easy because I didn’t like it, and feel lonely in that aspect, so I’ve got to wonder if it’s all me. Did I miss out some lines, because of the accent the actors took on (forgive me for finding Heath Ledger totally ridiculous as a primitive redneck — not that Gyllenhaal would be more real in those shoes, but at least he doesn’t try)? No, can’t be, the movie’s almost silent. Or did I fall asleep during one of those so many landscape shots? If I had, it wouldn’t have felt so long.

As far as I’m concerned, the movie never quite recovered from its slow, contemplative first hour — and what is there to contemplate in two brainless shepherds discovering sex and knocking each other out to express their attachment? Silly me, I like my love at first sight stories to show, or at least hint at, some kind of brain activity (incidentally, I recently saw a bit of Solaris again). It gets better afterwards (there are dialogues sometimes! and they’re good, when they’re present) but it’s still too diluted; I’ve got this odd intuition that there’s a reason why Brokeback is originally a short story, and two-hour movies are usually based on novels, not short stories.

But it’s really discouraging to try and explain why you found a movie mediocre and pointless when it’s already becoming a cult, and even manages to garner a straight audience (which is certainly its best quality, and worst flaw, even though movies made for a gay audience more often bad than good). You’ll go and see it anyway, and like everyone else you’ll think I’m wrong.

By the way… if the story was published in 1997, the author has no excuse for choosing a name so… erm, pun-prone. (Except for being a sixty-year-old woman and presumably not being quite informed on the deviant sexual practices of the late 1990s.)