The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog! For my first review, I chose The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, which was presented at Cannes in 2005 where it won Best Actor (Tommy Lee Jones), and Best Screenplay (written by Guillermo Arriaga). It was also nominated for Golden Palm at Cannes.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is a new-age take on a traditional western style film. Instead of involving cowboys and Indians, though, this movie involves the conventional good guys vs. bad guys in the form of illegal Mexican ranch hands vs. border patrolmen. In the movie, the border between the rural Texas town in which it is set and Mexico represents good and evil, friendship and enemies, opportunity and destruction.

The film tells the story of an unexpected friendship between two very different men – one, an American ranch owner, and the other an illegal Mexican immigrant named Melquiades Estrada. These two men meet in the beginning of the movie when Melquiades arrives at Pete’s cattle ranch in search of a job, and Pete hires him on the spot. The two men bond instantly; from the very beginning of the movie it is clear that there is an unspoken sense of respect and companionship between the two men. The director, Tommy Lee Jones, shows this relationship as one without any boundaries - the two men are empathetic and understanding of each other’s situations while not holding any prejudices towards the other though they come from very different backgrounds. The director pulls at the audience’s emotions when Melquiades is unexpectedly murdered on the ranch by an on-duty border patrolman. The rest of the movie follows Pete’s journey to bring Melquiades’ dead body back to Mexico with the forced help of the man who killed him. The border patrolman, though not remorseful at first, comes to terms with his actions in an emotional scene at the end of the movie, where he finally realizes the true meaning of friendship and companionship.

The principle message of the story is the literal and figurative cultural borders crossed within the film, and the positive/negative consequences these borders can bring. In The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, there are several instances where cultural borders are crossed which results in friendships and also several cases where cultural borders create unwanted barriers between people. The director sporadically uses Spanish language to reinforce the meaning of cultures being crossed, and to also give the movie more cultural depth.

The movie is divided into three subsets; The First Burial of Melquiades Estrada, The Second Burial of Melquiades Estrada, and The Third Burial of Melquiades Estrada, hence the name of the film. Each section of the movie contains complicated flashbacks and also elements of foreshadowing which combine to rid the film of any linearity, at least in the first three-fourths of the movie. Though complex and difficult to follow at times, these flashbacks help develop the storyline of the movie and reinforce the cultural themes and message of the director. These random, confusing scenes combined with satirical wit join to bring a sense of informality to the film.

The film made me ask myself: How do we deal with this complex situation as Americans? How do we stop the violence and corrupt politics? The movie was produced during the on-going political, social, and economic debate involving illegal Mexican immigrants in the United States. This film exposes the corruption on the American front, which is typically not shown to the American public. That being said, the film does not set out to judge the ignorant Americans nor the illegal Mexicans; it simply seeks to expose the corruption of rural border towns in both Mexico and Texas. One of my favorite aspects of the film is that both Mexicans and Americans have character flaws in the movie and it is not biased as to whose “wrong doings” are worse.

I really enjoy culturally complex films, and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is no exception. The movie causes the audience to question and reflect on a lot of different emotions and ideas. Even though I may be biased because I know it was highly regarded at The Cannes Film Festival, I think this film can be enjoyed by a lot of different people of varied ages and backgrounds. It has levels of depth to it, and in my personal opinion cannot be fully respected upon the first viewing. It is the type of movie that you may have to go back and watch a second, third, or fourth time to fully appreciate all the elements it has to offer – the tough and determined rancher with his strong sense of loyalty, the irony of the border patrolman’s life, the smooth and genuine incorporation of the Mexican culture, and also the harsh reality of the story it has to offer.