They say"never return to the place you've been happy",as a kind of maintaining the image and the memories of the happiness you felt there.However,for me BBM is not only a physical place,but a metaphor of the life they wanted to live and that circumstances-and often themselves...-didn't allow them to.There,Ennis and Jack could be themselves,feeling and living as they were at their inner self;it was as their Paradise on Earth,from which they had to descend to find the real life,the one that carried prohibitions,denials and problems to their love...It's to say,the question is not return or not to a place,but to the experiences they lived there;that,even if they were trying to remodelate their daily life to get it closer to BBM ideal-as Belair has said-they never obtained but a simple and often sad imitation of that...So,really both of them,never returned to the mountain,not in the same conditions that in 1963;they could never return to that place indeed.
I tend to agree with that.For them BBM was their paradise.What is so gut wrenchingly awful,is the fact that even on BBM things were not as they seemed.They were being observed.
This film and S.S just have so many layers of tragedy,it is hard to bear. They spend the rest of their lives trying to go back to something that they never really had.
Everything for them is tainted. In the S.S they are described as"flying in the euphoric bitter air,looking down -------- suspended above ordinary affairs--------they believed themselves invisible"
How much is packed into so few words. They were euphoric,inspite of themselves,they knew what they had found,but it was bitter,tainted already,as they were being watched and would soon have to descend to real or ordinary life.
On BBM it seems to the two of them ,they are flying, so euphoric are they.They have found they believe,even if only fleetingly their wings, and with it the freedom to fly,out of reach of prejudice and judgement.
It breaks me completely to think even that tiny moment in time is bitter/tainted.They are cetainly not invisible as we know.
When they descend, Ennis "felt he was in a slow motion ,but headlong,irreversible fall" It seems as if he is literally falling from heaven back down to earth.He is unaware at the time ,as is Jack,that their heaven was not as perfect as they thought.
He could never go back,it was irreversible.That was true for them both on so many levels.In one sense they could never go back,because what they were trying to go back to,simply did not exist.
Life for Ennis and Jack as for many of us, is reduced to one great big , if only.
If only we could turn back the clock,the pages of time,so many phrases for it.
But maybe what we are also being shown,is that we cannot go back,because what we thought we had is probably not as it once seemed.So we should grab life by the balls and seize the day,while we can.
Unfortunately for Jack and Ennis it was too late,but it is interesting that Heath very much had a seize the day attitude.I know we all wish we could turn that clock back,but I'm betting Heath probably did not have too many if only moments.He seemed to grab every opportunity that life threw his way.He probably could not be much more different to Ennis.
I am trying these days, no matter how hard ,to make more of all the good things and stop dwelling on all the bad. BBM affected me in so many ways, and still continues to do so.
I would suspect in the few pages of the short story, there is a whole lifetime of lessons to be learned.
