Okay, now here is a double feature that makes sense. The Wedding Banquet was Ang Lee’s second film (containing one of the best weddings I’ve ever seen) and Brokeback Mountain is his most recent (astonishingly gorgeous, even on the small screen).
I’d never seen The Wedding Banquet before, which is sort of amazing, and they’re really interesting films to see back to back. The Wedding Banquet is billed as a comedy but is complex and has depth, and of course Brokeback Mountain is a drama/tragedy with a surprising amount of humor. Both are about being queer within a culture with particularly rigid expectations. The Wedding Banquet also made me more interested (if possible) in seeing Saving Face, which also deals with homosexuality in Chinese-American culture. It’s at the top of my Netflix queue. *glee*
(My only real issue with The Wedding Banquet was the darn DVD. The only way I could get the Mandarin subtitled was if I had full-on English subtitles. Irritating! Either that, or I am an idiot.)
((And then I was tempted to follow up BBM with Sense and Sensibility because hey, Ang Lee and sheep, but I came to my senses and went to bed.))
wicked jaws 