Heated Rivalry is the Brokeback Mountain
of its generation.
I remember sitting in the theatre some twenty years ago (along with many other gay men) and realizing that tears were streaming from my eyes as I identified with the plight of Jack and Ennis and along with everyone else accepted their unhappy ending.
And then a generation later, it happened again, I watched a love story (actually two love stories) blossom on the screen and once more my tears flowed as I could so easily identify with Shane and Ilya and their dreams of men still young. And now, we have love with happy endings that seem possible for any of us to attain and that is the significance of this evolution in the telling of "our stories."
I am thankful that I have lived long enough to see this day, when gay love stories with happy endings can be so widely acclaimed and accepted. And indeed, possible for the dreamers among us.
Before Brokeback Mountain, Latter Days was the first gay love movie I saw in a theater while the gay movie festival, «Image & Nation» in Montreal in 2004. We were 7 gay men in the same row and everyone shed some tears at the end.
ReplyDelete(Happy ending here)
I bought the DVD and even now I always cry a bit at the end.
I also saw «My Beautiful Launderet» at the end of the 90's on TV but didn't make me cry.
Brokeback Mountain is for me a typical love story in USA redneck state with secrets to hide. The bad ending was to expect but it could end in a better way. Most admit that in cowboys society gay men are not main stream for sure.