Brokeback Mountain

Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain (2005) became a pop culture touchstone, even while suffering a crass smear campaign. Moral guardians deemed it Exhibit A of "liberal Hollywood" depravity, while sniggering homophobes made it an easy punchline. Despite box office success and critical acclaim, it lost Best Picture to Crash, a ponderous "issue film" that makes Stanley Kramer look subtle.

Those treating Brokeback Mountain like a mixture of Salo and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? only reveal their insecurity. It's really a touching romance, with Lee adapting Annie Proulx's short story into a low-key, heartrending drama. Exquisitely photographed and well-crafted, it's also a great vehicle for several up-and-coming stars.

In 1963, hard luck Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) take a job herding sheep for rancher Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid). They bond during their lonely summer in Montana, eventually sharing a night of impulsive sex. They initially brush it off, but find their relationship deepening into love. The two go their separate ways: Ennis marries Alma (Michelle Williams), his longtime sweetheart who eventually uncovers his secret. Jack endures a frosty marriage with Lureen (Anne Hathaway), the daughter of a businessman (Graham Beckel) who treats Jack like dirt. Ennis and Jack return to Brokeback Mountain for occasional trysts, but their secret life causes endless misery.

Brokeback Mountain starts. Lee and Rodrigo Pieto provide ravishing photography, especially during the sheep drive. Alberta's Canadian Rockies provide a picturesque fill-in for Montana. Western writers Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana provide an evocative script, reproducing backwoods rodeos, small-town life and dreamy Fourth of July parties with seamless authenticity and atmospheric feel. Next to Into the Wild, it's the best evocation of rural America in recent memory.

Which makes its story that much more potent. Brokeback Mountain explores male gender roles within a dominantly masculine setting. Ennis particularly fails to meet society's expectations of masculinity. He's a lousy husband and a lazy man who'd rather go on "fishing trips" than provide for his family. To compensate he cultivates  his manly image, notably by twice picking fights with strangers. By contrast, Jack feels more comfortable in his sexuality, soliciting prostitutes and hitting on a closeted friend (David Harbour). On Thanksgiving, he bickers with his father-in-law over a football and forcible takes over turkey-carving responsibilities.

Brokeback shows Ennis and Jack forced not only to hide their affections, but play to society's expectations of manhood. Both men endure loveless marriages for the sake of "appearances," harming their families along with themselves. Ennis puts paid to Jack's idea of running away to a secluded ranch; he recounts a traumatic childhood incident where two rancher-lovers met a grisly fate. It's the closest Brokeback comes to overt speech-making, but in context it works.

Lee avoids the temptation to make Ennis and Jack righteous victims. Ennis's failure to hold a job drives Alma away, not his sexuality; she doesn't broach the latter subject until after their divorce. Jack can't abide his condescending in-laws and consorts with male prostitutes; Lureen seems too wrapped up in business to notice. Their mutual infidelity has unpleasant repercussions on all concerned. The gay angle isn't exactly incidental, but it's layered into the character drama. Brokeback's too accomplished to be a grandstanding plea for tolerance.

Heath Ledger breaks decisively with his pretty boy roles. Laconic, repressed and less-than-virtuous, he's a difficult character that Ledger handles beautifully. Jake Gyllenhaal is slightly less impressive, but with such a flawed character it rivals Zodiac as his best work. Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn) gives a heartrending turn, deeply wounded by her husband's dishonesty. Anne Hathaway's Lureen by contrast feels thinly sketched, with her hair growing bigger and blonder over time. Randy Quaid (The Long Riders), Peter McRobbie (Lincoln) and Roberta Maxwell provide solid support.

Brokeback Mountain shows that films can make a point without soapbox oratory. By showing Jack and Ennis violently slammed into the closet, its implicit critique of homophobia rings through. But Ang Lee remains focused on story telling, resulting in a beautifully rendered tragedy.

Life of Pi

Life of Pi long resided on the list of "unfilmable" books. Short on plot, heavy on fantastic imagery and spiritual allegory, Yann Martel's 2001 novel seems designed to frustrate any potential filmmakers. Ang Lee's adaptation not only does the book justice but stands as a remarkable film in its own right.

Pi Patel (Irrfan Khan) narrates his life story to a Canadian novelist (Rafe Spall). As a teenager (Suraj Sarma) his family owned an Indian zoo, traveling to Canada by boat. On the way their ship sinks in a storm; Pi is the only human survivor. He ends up trapped on a lifeboat with tiger Richard Parker, drifting endlessly through the Pacific Ocean. Man and tiger must learn to get along, learning spiritual truths along the way.

Life of Pi is an incredible achievement. Working with Rhythm and Hues studio, Lee crafts a visual wonder . Richard Parker alone justifies the production: photo real and incredibly lifelike, this pixelated tiger puts the motion capture creatures of Avatar and Rise of the Planet of the Apes to shame. Not to mention the endless visual delights: jellyfish-lit evenings, schools of flying fish, an island crawling with curious meerkats and carnivorous plant life. The movie is so immersive issues of realism don't matter. Arguably, CGI's never been put to better use.

Pi presents a warmhearted, pantheist parable. Pi absorbs tenants of every major religion in his search for a greater truth. Early scenes touch on whimsical magic realism but take on a darker cast after the shipwreck. Watching man and tiger bond through gestures and training provides an intriguing story hook; their bonding suggests a universal understanding through faith is possible. Pi may lose his family and endure hardships but his faith remains unshaken, Job and Daniel in one. It's a compelling argument for religion, even if Lee backhandedly suggests it may be bunk. 

That Life of Pi retains interest without a narrative proves equally impressive. The story remains compelling even though 75 percent of the action takes place on the boat. The visuals never lack for wonders, while the unorthodox man-tiger dynamics keeps the story afloat. Lee and writer fudge things slightly with the tedious framing device; this ads nothing a simple voice over couldn't have done better. Similarly, the invitation for viewers to question Pi's truthfulness is a questionable bum steer.

Newcomer Suraj Sharma makes Pi a compelling protagonist, endlessly charming and real in the most bizarre circumstances. Irrfan Khan (Slumdog Millionaire) and Rafe Spall (Prometheus) handle their end competently. Gerard Depardieu appears in cameo.

Life of Pi deserved every technical award this year, and stands as a fine piece of storytelling.

Ride With the Devil

Ang Lee scores a home run with his Civil War epic Ride With the Devil (1999). This adaptation of Daniel Woodrell's Woe to Live On received middling reviews and a cold audience reception, but it's close behind Glory as one of Hollywood's best takes on the War Between the States.

Jake Roedel (Tobey Maguire) is the son of a German immigrant in 1860 Missouri, where a brutal guerilla war between pro-slavery Bushwhackers and free-soil Jayhawkers is spilling over from Kansas Territory. After Roedel's friend Jack Bull (Skeet Ulrich) loses his father to the Jayhawkers, Jake, Jack and hot-head Pitt (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) join a Bushwhacker gang led by George Clyde (Simon Baker) and his ex-slave Holt (Jeffrey Wright). The border war escalates into even further violence, as Clyde's gang joins up with the murderous William Quantrill (John Ales) in his sack of Lawrence, Kansas. Jake's German ancestry and friendship with Holt leads to a rivalry with Pitt, and a romance with widow Sue Lee (Jewel) further complicates things.

Ride With the Devil deals with a largely forgotten chapter of the Civil War. Hostilities had been raging in "Bleeding Kansas" since 1854, long before Ft. Sumter, giving rise to infamous killers like John Brown, Jim Lane, Bloody Bill Anderson and Will Quantrill. Missouri's plentiful German population sided with the Federal government, while slave-owners supported the Confederacy, and the Civil War took on a particularly brutal edge in that region. This lawless, internicine conflict generated atrocities on both sides, its legacy a generation of lingering hatred and criminals like Jesse James and Cole Younger.

A handful of films have addressed this brutal conflict. Dark Command, an early John Wayne vehicle, sees the Duke as a Jayhawker matching wits with Walter Pidgeon's Quantrill in the streets of Lawrence. Clint Eastwood's The Outlaw Josey Wales survives the conflict to continue a private war against the Unionist "Red Legs" who killed his family. And of course, there have been an slew of Jesse James films. Ride With the Devil, however, easily best these other accounts.

Ride With the Devil is a tapestry of moral ambiguity. The film's brutal brush warfare is far removed from the romanticized, heroic portrayals of Gone With the Wind and Gettysburg. There's little sense of ideology, whether states rights or slavery, in this conflict, with everyone drawn into the vortex of slaughter. Both sides commit atrocities, and those caught in the middle are subject: each of the protagonists loses a family member to the Jayhawkers, and don't bat an eye at gunning down unarmed men and boys at every opportunity. The film wonderfully humanizes its mostly-unseen Union soldiers through captured letters, providing welcome warmth that only emphasizes the war's cruelty.

Writer James Schamus's sensitive characterizations add to the complexity. Jake's dilemma is poignantly rendered: distrusted because of his German ancestry, he finds even his family isn't safe from Jayhawk depredation. The most interesting character is Holt, whose devotion to Clyde is unconditional - and who bitterly resents having his "freedom" subject to another man's whims. The film mostly avoids convention, with its mature treatment of its romance and resolving its central character conflict in an unexpected way.

Ang Lee's Hollywood work is hit or miss, but Ride With the Devil is some of his best work. The film is beautifully shot by Frederick Elmes, mixing gorgeous photography with brutally intense action scenes (and Mychael Danna's wonderful score). Curiously, what should be the film's centerpiece - Quantrill's raid on Lawrence - is a damp squib, filmed in a sterile and rushed fashion atypical of the rest of the film.

Skeet Ulrich was the biggest name at the time, but his star was ultimately outshone by co-stars Tobey Maguire (Spider-Man), James Caviezel (Wyatt Earp) and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (The Tudors). Maguire has never been better than his measured performance, mixing righteous anger with moral uncertainty. Rhys-Meyers plays a bit over-the-top but Ulrich and Caviezel score by underplaying their characters. Singer Jewel's strong performance provides the story's emotional rock. Jeffrey Wright (Quantum of Solace) gives a layered, sensitive portrayal of a truly unique character. Familiar faces like Tom Wilkinson (Valkyrie), Simon Baker (TV's The Mentalist) and Mark Ruffalo (Shutter Island) turn up in bit parts.

Ride With the Devil isn't perfect, but it's definitely one of the better Civil War films available.