I, on the other hand, had high expectations for the movie which wasn't met. I didn't really feel the love between the two main characters and the story line seems too disjointed.
Their first night together, I felt wasn't realistic and too convienent. There should have been more leading up to it - as in tention. They seem to jump from strangers to lovers and the in-between didn't seem to be there. At the end of the movie, I was asking myself - is this it?
But having said that, I'm going to watch the movie again. I might appreciate it more the second time around. But we'll see.

Hey An, I can see where you're coming from but it came across to me that the love was implied and evident just by the way they acted in their own lives and through the dialogue. They didn't have a 'falling in love' period but I think that initial physical encounter was really unexpected for the both of them and later just haunted them for years. They obviously kept thinking about it because they were so excited to see eachother after the four years of being apart. Keep in mind that they did spend the entire summer together. I don't think there was tension because I don't think they even knew they were gay at that stage. I don't think this film was meant to be a visually lovey dovey film but instead implied due to the amount of time that elapses throughout the film and the fact that they still kept thinking about eachother the whole time. Del Mar's comment to Jack "I am this way because of you" (a lacklustre life, a confused man, no sense of direction). I think men, especially in such a situation in such a intolerant period of time, are more reserved in showing their feelings. They may really have felt love for eachother but sometimes when you have the feeling that something is 'wrong' and with the fear that you will be bashed to death if anyone found out (eg: jack died that way and Del mar had that fear all his life), you are a lot more reserved as a whole. Anyways, that's my point of view :)

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I quite like the disjointedness. It was slightly confusing at one stage during the film and I did give it some thought. Ang Lee chose good significant scenes to portray the lapse of time tho. Ie: when Jack got with his wife for the first time and then later she's pregnant). The dialogue helped too. Because this film had to fit an entire lifetime into a 2.5 hr film, this disjointed filming is a good idea compared to say text coming up on the screen "9 months later...", "5 years later", so on and so forth. There's just too many time changes!

Hey An,

I do agree about their first night together seeming very sudden, but there was tension between them leading up to it - the playful bickering (like a husband and wife) the night that Delmar came home late after losing the horses, the slow development of friendship, even the way that Jack looked at Delmar while he was shaving (when they were waiting to get their job, right at the start).

This film was not supposed to be a simple love story. Although the traditional "forbidden love" story was definitely there - boy meets boy, boys fall in love, boys torn apart by outside circumstances - the point of the film isn't the simple progression of the story (i.e. the chain of events). If the film was about simply about documenting the events in their lives, it would have been over in half an hour.

I found that it was more about their emotions. And how their emotions/feelings had to be controlled in their society. The long pauses between when they saw each other, and their almost complete lack of emotional expression towards each other seemed to be released in short, extremely intense bursts. Because they obviously couldn't express their love at all, it all just came out in sudden/intense moments together (like the first time they slept together, when they met each other for the first time after 4 years and kissed so intensely outside DelMar's house). I think this would be the natural progression of a really strong love that can't be expressed in an everyday context.

As you could see, DelMar was extremely emotionally repressed - he could barely demonstrate love for his daughters - and very non-communicative about his feelings. So this is why he wouldn't ever come out with a "I Love You" line to Jack, no matter how strongly he might have felt it.

More coming...

Ang Lee films aren't about obvious demonstration of emotions - most of them require discussion and a couple of viewings to appreciate them properly. There are always layers of feelings, issues, themes etc. And there's not always an easy answer. There is no "one right way" to interpret any of his films, and not all of the issues or challenges to the characters are explicitly stated. This is what, in my opinion, makes his films all the more rewarding to watch.

But about the shirt thing - it's not (as far as I know) an American tradition, like you mentioned might be the case. It's nothing that complicated. The simple fact is that Jake kept the bloodied shirt from their first summer because he loved DelMar and wanted a keepsake of their time together.

You might remember that when they came back from their first summer on Brokeback, DelMar casually mentioned that he left his shirt up there... a line which I thought wouldn't have any other significance in the film, but it did.

After all their years apart, so much had changed and happened... the 2-3 "high altitude fucks" a year, the wives, the families, the struggles with Jack's father-in-law, with his business, the trips to Mexico, DelMar's ex-wife's remarriage, the new lovers...

But despite all of this, Jack, the romantic one, never forgot how much he loved DelMar or their first summer together - throughout all those events, after more than 25 years, after he should have given up hope of their ever being together, he still kept that shirt, that momento of their first summer together.

This was the part that got me - when DelMar found his old shirt still hanging, untouched, in Jack's closet. Showing that Jack still thought of him, still loved him, like no-one else in his life ever did or would.