Movies You Love Part 3: Brokeback Mountain and others
Welcome back to Movies You Love, a weekly blog about movies recommended by you, watched by me.
Several months back, I eloquently demanded on Facebook, “tell me what movie is ur fav that u ask people to watch all the time but u know they never watch it. b/c I'm gonna watch it.” Art can mean so much to someone, for better or for worse. Films, in particular, can pair with good or bad memories or even stimulate personal growth. Everyone in the World could watch the same film, but have a different interpretation of and emotional connection to it.
We’ve all recommended that ONE movie to our friends over and over. It might be a bit odd, a bit slow, a bit cheesy, deeply dark, or emotionally taxing, but we love it so much we want everyone else to love it as well. That’s what we have here. The people have spoken. These are the films that mean the most to you. The films no one ever watches even when you beg. I’ve watched them, and now I wanna chat.
----------------------------------------------------
Film: Dhoom 2 (2006) Recommended By: Shannon Jones
Dhoom 2 is a Bollywood extravaganza. It has everything you could ask for: hot people, cops, fights, song and dance, comedy, and love. In true Bollywood fashion, there are many subplots, but the overarching storyline follows a genius thief whose identity is unknown. For the average viewer, you might be caught off guard with the twists and turns, but the film veteran might be able to call the next move. No matter who you are, you will have so much fun singing and dancing along.
Shannon: I first discovered Dhoom 2 because of Netflix’s “because you watched x, you also might like y” section and I have no regrets. It’s a glorious mishmash of Bollywood, buddy cop, and spy movies, but carried to a degree I never could have imagined. I’ll sometimes tell myself i’m going to watch just a little, and then accidentally watch the whole thing because the action sequences and dance numbers are so good.
People don’t seem to take it seriously when I suggest Dhoom 2 to them, probably because I describe it as being “a wild ride, you’ll love it I swear, there’s sand snowboarding and a man posing as the Queen of England and an underwater jetski in the first ten minutes”. But honestly, that description would sell ME on this movie, so who knows. I have converted several friends just by forcing them to watch the first scene with me, but for the most part, it seems like this isn’t something people think will be “their style.”
I do have a reputation among several groups of friends as having a weird taste in movies, because I enjoy fantasy and rom-coms that end unhappily and I unironically love all four Sharknado movies. But I think the most important thing is that movies for every audience get made and watched, even the small subset of Sharknado and crazy absurdist action movie-loving audiences (like me).
Film: Brokeback Mountain (2005) Recommended by: Alex Dahlberg
Brokeback Mountain follows the story of two cowboys who spent a summer together on Brokeback Mountain and later in life develop a relationship “going fishing” a few times a year. A heartbreaking, beautiful tale of the love two men share for each other, and their completely opposite ways of handling attraction in the 1960s and 1970s. You’ll cry, you’ll cry, you’ll cry, and maybe laugh once? Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger undoubtedly give the performance of their careers.
Alex: I first watched Brokeback Mountain when I was 15 years old. I was drawn to it because I had recently developed a major crush on Heath Ledger and I figured 2 hours+ of his face could never be a bad thing. Not to mention Jake Gyllenhaal. I came out of the movie a different person.
Brokeback Mountain has an unfair stigma to overcome. As one of the first major movies to focus on a gay romance, played by two straight men, it immediately became something to giggle about: "the gay cowboy movie." I recently watched the cast being interviewed by Oprah back in 2005, and I was appalled. Questions like "How was it to kiss a man?"', followed by childish laughter from the audience, distracted from any serious dialogue about the film.
I suppose this wouldn't bother me so much if the movie was a comedy, a silly romp about gay cowboys. But Brokeback Mountain is nothing of the sort. It is a modern Romeo and Juliet, a more complex and painful story of star-crossed lovers, doomed to suffer for their love. It is a slow-paced, carefully directed film where every single beautifully-crafted shot is worth a thousand words. Ledger's performance as Ennis Delmar is haunting in its silence. Every twitch of his jaw when he finds himself unable to speak seems to reflect millennia of the silent suffering of queer people. Gyllenhaal's performance is almost more painful to watch, with his enthused optimism for their future together, and his refusal to acknowledge the impossibility that Ennis sees so clearly.
I love Brokeback Mountain because it shows us one microcosm of love and pain in a place in the world that I would never have thought of before. Yes, it's about two white men, but it brings the LGBT struggle to the rural poor, to the backwater American towns. It reminds you that six years before the Stonewall Riots began to change everything for young city queers, there was no sense of hope for LGBT people in rural America.
I continue to recommend Brokeback Mountain to people because I know it still lives in the public imagination as "the gay cowboy movie". No matter how progressive a person I talk to, I still see a twitch of a smile when I talk about my favourite movie. Brokeback was cursed by the year it came out - despite its critical acclaim, it is still perceived as a joke.
Watch it and then tell me how funny it is.
Film: Cinema Paradiso (1988)
Recommended by: Jerome Navarro
Winner of Best Foreign Film at the 1990 Academy Awards, Cinema Paradiso has stunned audiences for decades. Cinema Paradiso is about a man’s (Salvatore) life in three parts. From a child, to a teenager, and then a middle aged man, Salvatore lived in a small Italian town. He is mentored by the local projectionist at Cinema Paradiso who acted more as a father to him. Salvatore then leaves his hometown, never to return until the death of his mentor and father figure, Alfredo. After talking to Jerome, it’s amazing the different experiences we had watching this film. The film was so impactful to me because of Toto’s connection to cinema but it was impactful to Jerome for other reasons, listed below.
Jerome: I think it was Randy Newman that said "anything that makes you cry must be something to do with yourself." There have been few movies that have shaken me to the core and make me cry, and Cinema Paradiso is the only one that consistently does so. Despite endless viewings, by the time the last scene plays my face is always painted with tears.
I hardly recommend this movie to friends because I'm scared that they won't like it. It's admittedly a bit to get into. It's a Foreign film completely in subtitles, which is already a barrier for some. It's also unapologetically corny and sappy. And it's one of the most succinct films to capture the awe, terror, and sacrifice in growing up. I guess I don't recommend it often because I relate so much to it; by rejecting the film, I feel like my friends would be rejecting me.
From various circumstances, Salvatore has to leave the village where he spent his entire life in order to have a shot at the big city. His father figure and mentor threatens the teenager to never return to the village, lest he give up on his dreams. There's a raw, real pain in leaving. With my own parents leaving me to live alone in the US, I know the struggles of forcing yourself away from the ones who love you in order to truly grow. There's a lack of closure with how the way the beginning of Salvatore's life went- estrangement from his mother, being torn away from his first love. It isn't until his homecoming when he finally finds his own closure.
Especially as a twentysomething that has a lot of regrets to reckon, I sometimes fear that I should've never left home. Cinema Paradiso acknowledges this painful truth, that sorrow dances with joy and the past will always sound sweeter in the present.
The reason why I do watch it with people that I trust is that because by seeing the movie, I think people can really begin to understand me. There's tinges of sadness in the nostalgia of this film, but underlying it is a sense of purpose. It's about all the beauty and shit that comes with growing up; saying goodbye to family, living elsewhere knowing that home will change without you, and the love in sacrificing your own happiness and letting people go so that they can make their own path.
Check back each week to find a new group of films recommended by my friends. And if you have a suggestion, feel free to email me or write in the comments. I’d love to add you to my list.