Review

Review Date: 19-February-06
Spoiler Rating: High
Juju Judgment: Juicy

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)

I can see why "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" hit it big at Cannes last year. Even though it's set in Texas and stars the very American Tommy Lee Jones (who also directed), the film has a tempo and untidiness that seem somehow European; at least, it's not your average Hollywood fare. It took me a while to catch up with Jones, but once I did I was able to overlook a few rough patches and home in on what he was trying to say. And I'm glad somebody is saying it.

"Three Burials" begins with the discovery of the body of (you guessed it) Melquiades Estrada, an illegal immigrant who was shot in the chest and left in a shallow grave near the Mexican border. In an unwieldy series of flashbacks, we see how this man (Julio Cesar Cedillo) came north to find work and was befriended by a rancher named Pete (Jones). We also see how his last days coincided with the arrival of a young border patrolman (Barry Pepper) and his wife (January Jones). Before long the two strands of the story collide, leaving Pete with a lot of grief which the local sheriff (Dwight Yoakam) refuses to assuage. Being of the Western stamp, Pete decides to take the law into his own hands while fulfilling a promise to bury his friend in Mexico should the need arise. He therefore takes the young officer hostage and embarks on a quest to enact justice in Mel's native land.

The key to Jones' tale, which was penned by Guillermo Arriaga, is the motivation for the protagonist's actions: loyal friendship. What sets Pete apart from (and above) the other characters is an old-fashioned attachment to another human being, specifically one who's an outsider. Various scenes reflect a sad fact about present day, that most people could give a rip if a stranger were dead or alive. (Regrettably, I am looking in the mirror as well as out the window when I say this.) The two marriages in the movie show how this modern detachment even extends into what ought to be our closest associations. (This point explains the presence of the women in the picture, including Melissa Leo as a randy waitress, who otherwise seem superfluous.) Looking at the U.S.-Mexican border through the patrolman's eyes expresses this sickness most clearly. There's me, and there's them, with a river or guarded demarcation between us. Pete's inclination to cross these boundaries both literally and figuratively identifies him as a hero.

An odd trait of "Three Burials" is how it depicts Mel's killer as almost comically vile. (He beats women before arresting them, forces hideous sex on his wife, and spends a good part of his workday riffling through Hustler magazine.) Not only does this give the film a twisted sense of humor, it diminishes the message suggested by Pete's eventual triumph; it's as if Arriaga and Jones don't really believe that callous, close-minded bastards who represent society's rotten but common qualities can grow or achieve redemption. They're probably right to doubt this, but their portrayal of such a wonder is an unusual and mostly enjoyable sight.

Copyright © 2006 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.