Howdy folks!
It's me Ryan again. I watched the movie the second time with two of my best girlfriends this afternoon. I kind of dreaded watching the movie again because it was very painful to watch it the first time because of Ennis and his dishonesty with not others, but himself, throughout the movie.
If not for the tragic ending, I would have given a bad review of this movie since I didn't like how Ennis made me feel up to the turning point near the end of the movie. I kept putting myself in Ennis's shoes and imagining myself doing things my way so that the movie wouldn't have ended in tragedy, that things would have turned out differently, that Ennis might be there with Jack when he passed from this life. I kept getting angry at Ennis's character for not having the courage to realize his needs and pursue them. I was angry at him for entering into a marriage and being dishonest with his wife, a woman who deserves to be loved in return.
You see, I came from a Mormon family and I was the eldest son. I was so scared of coming out that I hid in my closet in fear until I was twenty. It was only when I turned twenty that I reviewed my life and found that I was not happy. I was not happy because I felt that I missed out in my teenage years. I never had any real friends because I never showed who I was, I was living a lie the entire time. I never had a relationship. I never went out on a date. I never kissed. I never loved somebody.
It was then that I had to make a choice. One choice was to spend the rest of my life being the good son and saint and marrying a nice girl and raising a big family in the safety net of what was indoctrinated into me since I was a child. However, I would be living a lie and I couldn't imagine lying to my wife or raising my kids in a loveless marriage just so that I can feel "safe". This is the relationship model my parents had and I didn't want to end up like them, who are now thankfully divorced.
The second choice would be spend the rest of my life in solitude and being the perfect saint. This way, I would not be breaking God's rules or lying to a girl and to my family; the only person I would hurt is myself and I would become a martyr for my beliefs. However, this option is unbearable to me since I don't want to spend the rest of my life alone and deprived of love, counting the days to my death. No person should resign himself to such a fate, a life without the hope of love.
The third option would be to abandon the life I led up to that point and take a leap of faith. I would have to put my family into shame and break my parents' hearts. I would also have to accept the risk that my parents might kick me out of the house once I tell the truth about who I am. However, I realized that God would rather have me happy then be miserable and resign myself to a fate worse than death. I also realized that my parents will still love me for who I am and I don't want them to die only knowing me as their good son rather than their true son. So naturally, I picked the third option and have been happy ever since. I've never regretted my decision.
However, this is where my dissatisfaction with Ennis stems from. Because of the social climate of our times, I can come out today in my local area without the two threats that loomed over Ennis's head, the threat of his death and harm to the people he loves, especially Jack. This is not just a simple fear, but a real and serious risk that Ennis would place not only himself, but the people around him.
Although I might be able to believe that I'm invincible at the time and be fearless about death given my youth, I will regret living my life at the expense of my family, friends and lover. And once I saw it from that standpoint, I can finally sympathize why Ennis did what he did; he wanted to protect himself and the people he love, especially Jack more than himself. This is illustrated when he stood up for his family during the fireworks. He would rather sacrifice his own life and needs to protect others from getting hurt.
Throughout the movie, we see that Ennis associates being himself, or more specifically, loving Jack, with death and tragedy, the first of which is when he finds the remains of the sheep on the mountain after a passionate night with Jack. However, the more poignant one is that of his father showing him the corpse by the roadside. If I had that same traumatic childhood memory, then I would equate being queer as death. I probably wouldn't have come out at all and being a selfish, but real person suffering from the "human condition" of wanting to receive and give love, I would also have picked marrying a woman and have kids rather than staying single and dying alone or seeing my love ones mowed down by bigots.
If his time was more like our own, if he was not raised to be a Malboro man/cowboy/father figure/etc, if he was able to love and be who he wanted to be, he could have spared himself from watching the people around him getting hurt by his decision. I believe that Ennis grew wise enough to realise that as much as he protected his love ones from death and harm, he was also the source of their emotional torment and hell.
I believe that the reason why he got more and more hunched and closed throughout the movie was because he couldn't stop himself from simultaneously loving, protecting and hurting the people he loves and saw no way to break the vicious cycle. He's constantly internally wrecked with guilt and shame that although he strives to be their protector, he was also their tormentor as well. Something he could not forgive himself, but was forced to live with since the other alternative, death, scared him far greater.
That's probably why Ennis broke up with his second girlfriend; he didn't want to hurt anymore people. What I took from Ennis's breakup with his second girlfriend after his last meeting with Jack was that he was beginning to break out of that cycle; he was ready to accept a life with Jack if it was not for his untimely demise.
The true tragedy for me was not really Jack's death, but that Ennis was so close to finally attaining the freedom and happiness he has always wanted and dreamed of. We all wanted him to be happy. And we all felt his pain and loss when he hugged Jack's shirt. We all felt that he deserved the freedom to love and be loved, the same kind of freedom that we sometimes take for granted.
What the movie shows is that the true enemy is not religious groups, the government or even hateful bigots. It's death. We are only given so much time to live, and Time is very unforgiving if we do not learn from our mistakes. Death is certain and it will not give us a second chance once it passes. If anything, what we should take from the movie, as my friend Mike rightfully mentioned, is to live each day as if it was our first and be with our love ones as if it was their last. Because it might be.
As you can see, the movie is still affecting me and I hope that my thoughts on this matter will help others come to terms with the movie as it did for me. I hope to hear more comments regarding my newest post. Take care and Happy New Year, don't let it go to waste.
Ryan
