Brokeback Mountain

[oyceter]

Ok, I finally figured out why I found this movie so depressing, even more so than the sad and tragic love story warranted.

It's because everyone feels so penned in, so grey, so devoid of options. There is no joy in the movie, not even when Jack and Ennis get to be together. It actually reminds me a great deal of About Schmidt and depresses me in the same way.

Mostly, I was watching and being slowly horrified, thinking, "Wow, is life that bad? Is it that dull? Are all these day-to-day routine things that we do so awful?" as well as wondering if I would end up like Ennis or Schmidt in About Schmidt. I think that's my personal nightmare -- to wake up one day and think that my life is wasted and useless, that I've passed by opportunities for happiness, that I am somehow living a dishwater drab life. I got that sense from Ennis and from Schmidt... not so much from Jack, who at least fights and feels. But the sheer oppression of the movie... eep.

It wasn't even the political climate. It was everything. The small town, the claustrophobic dances, the sense that nothing was quite good enough. And I got stuck thinking that life in small towns may be like that (About Schmidt has a similar view of Midwestern small towns), but I don't think so. I mean, for me, I would feel caged, but that is because I like my life here. But I can see how the things like dances set to country music and herding sheep and running a tractor company could be fun. It's just that they aren't fun in the movie; they're stultifying. Ennis doesn't seem to find joy in anything, except the rare few times he's with Jack, and even then, the happiness is tinged with guilt.

I was wondering why the movie depressed me so much, because normally I can take tragic movies and the like without feeling totally hopeless. It's because it feels like a tragedy of moments, in which just being alive is drudgery.

And, well, that's what scares me most, because I don't want to look back and find only regret and closed doors, or to only go through the motions of living without actually feeling or enjoying any of it.

Comments

[oyceter]

Oof, yeah. I'm still trying to shake off that claustrophobic feeling and reminding myself that my life is not like that, damnit! (or, eh, I hope not)

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

I grew up in rural NM, too, so I expect it might set off some flashbacks there...and feeling like I've wasted my life, or that it's been twisted and cramped into unusability, is one of my biggest fears, too, so No. Don't think I'll see that one.