MOVIE MONDAY - THREE BURIALS

“Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.” - Abraham Lincoln

At the weekend we saw a film on DVD that I had not heard about, but which we found very good. It was another of these films that was relegated to the bargain bin of our local video shop, but which I picked out as I admire the work of Tommy Lee Jones. It was the 2005 “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” (or simply “Three Burials”). Jones directs and stars in this film, both very ably done.

The film is set in Texas near the border of Mexico and concerns several people, all somehow connected with the USA Border Patrol. Mike Norton (played very well by Barry Pepper) is an arrogant border patrolman who comes to town with his young wife. Norton mistakenly kills the Mexican cowboy Melquiades Estrada and buries him in a shallow grave in the desert. When Melquiades’s body is accidentally found, a hasty and perfunctory autopsy is carried out and the body is buried in a pauper’s grave. His best friend, the ranch foreman Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones) discovers his friend has been killed and buried and recovers the body unlawfully to fulfill his promise and bury Melquiades in his hometown, Jimenez, in Mexico. Perkins kidnaps Norton and forces him to come to terms with his actions.

The film is powerful and gut-wrenching, as it explores themes of social injustice, the plight of the Mexican border runners, prejudice, friendship, love, marriage, adultery, crime and punishment, redemption. It is a road movie with a difference and builds to an awesome climax as Perkins and Norton end up in Mexico, looking for Jimenez. It is a moving film and one with several puzzling features that become resolved if one thinks about the film after its end. There are certainly many obscure elements that will appear crystal clear on second viewing.

As is the case with many films nowadays, the editing is haphazard, interrupting the linearity of the story with many flashbacks and flash-forwards, especially at the beginning of the film. In the second half of the movie, the story assumes a linearity that leads inexorably to the climax. Estrada’s character (played by Julio Cedillo) is the most puzzling, but the key to his secret is the photograph that he holds so dear and which Perkins keeps till the end.

The cinematography is excellent and all of the performances very good. The music understated and appropriate and the whole film wonderfully put together. It won two prizes at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival (Best Actor – Tommy Lee Jones, and Best Screenplay – Guillermo Arriaga) and the Grand Prix at the Flanders International Film Festival in 2005. It also won the 2006 Bronze Wrangler award in the Western Heritage Awards.

Have a look around for it and watch it, well worth it!