"Then sighing, said the other, 'Have thy will,
I am the love that dare not speak its name.' "
("Two Loves" From "The Chameleon," December 1894 - Lord Alfred Douglas)

I've encountered events over the years that generate such a strong emotional reaction that the sensation lingers long after I've forgotten the details of the event.

To be honest, there is a word or term that I'm seeking that doesn't exist in the English language. Something that indicates that your senses have become overloaded.

That was my reaction to "Brokeback Mountain." I feel dazed and numb.

I was not prepared for its sheer physical beauty. So many scenes are almost like still photographs. Not just the mountains and forests, but even the scenes of the houses and roads and people. I almost wanted the camera to stop so I could savor the vista.

No matter what happens, there's always a sense of stillness. Especially the shots of the interaction between and among the characters. It's as if their are caught in amber.

Jack and Ennis could be characters out of "Romeo and Juliet." Star-crossed lovers separated by the claustrophobia of gender expectations. And like Romeo and Juliet, you know their love is doomed.

It is a superbly crafted work of art. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are so incredible as Ennis and Jack that it is impossible for me to think of anyone else in those roles. It is their story, and everyone else, as good at they may be, are like spectral presences.

Unless you lived in that era, it's impossible to understand the ice bound world that surrounded matters of sexuality. I noticed that there is considerable criticism at IMDB about the effect on the families and the deceit and duplicity. But, alas, that's what one did. You married, had children and played around, if possible, on the side. And after ten years or so would come the divorce. (I've been very surprised at the number of people over the years who have said to me, "You were never married?!" )

I also think the degree of intimacy for two men who did not consider themselves queer was remarkable. The touching, embracing, kissing, tenderness was almost to my eye unrealistic. Even now the standard for two men who consider themselves non-queer but who engage in sexual contact is limited to a few physical activities of biological coupling. Kissing is a a strong "no no." Any other kind of physical contact is very unlikely to occur.

In terms of film making, I'm reminded of the works of Ingmar Bergman. And that sound like a very odd comparison. But there is some type of emotional austerity in the cinema of Bergman that reminds me of "Brokeback Mountain."

The iconography of the overlapping shirts is so simple and yet so brilliant. When Ennis first encounters the shirts in Jack's old bedroom; his shirt, the checkered one he had on when he and Jack were roughhousing, is on the inside, surrounded by Jack's.

From Annie Proulx's story:

The shirt seemed heavy until he saw there was another shirt inside it, the sleeves carefully worked down inside Jack's sleeves. It was his own plaid shirt, lost, he'd thought, long ago in some damn laundry, his dirty shirt, the pocket ripped, buttons missing, stolen by Jack and hidden here inside Jack's own shirt, the pair like two skins, one inside the other, two in one.

After everything was done, my first reaction was to weep. To weep for Jack and Ennis. And to weep that as gay people we are still prone to suffer the vagaries of a hateful society. But also to weep for those who are forever imprisoned by some type of cultural entrapment; bound by their own moral astigmatism.

But there's another part of me that revels in the idea that someone could write a story and make a film of such transcendent beauty and power.

PAX!