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 Entertainment | May 2005 
Tommy Lee Jones Explores Tex-Mex Border At Cannes
 Erik Kirschbaum - Reuters
| | U.S. director Tommy Lee Jones poses during red carpet arrivals for his in-competition film 'Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada' at the 58th Cannes Film Festival May 20, 2005. (Photo: John Schults/Reuters) |
Tommy Lee Jones explores often the brutal life along the U.S.-Mexican border, playing a Texas ranch foreman in a powerful film he also directs that made its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday.
"The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" deftly slips back and forth between English and Spanish dialogue with a refreshing portrayal of frontier realities in both countries.
"There is a lot of misunderstanding and prejudice on both sides of the border," said Jones, a Hollywood stalwart who doubled as director for the first time on a major cinema film.
"This tries to point out that's probably not a good thing. A lot of people who live there, when asked to characterise the border, say 'What border?' It's just a river. It's the same country on both sides and the same culture on both sides."
Jones, 58, plays a likeable if taciturn west Texas ranch foreman named Pete Perkins, who speaks fluent Spanish and harbours no ugly prejudices about Mexicans.
But his friend, a ranch hand who immigrated from Mexico, is shot near the border due to a clumsy error by a zealous U.S. border patrol guard. His body is buried twice in Texas before Perkins discovers who killed him and the cover-up that followed.
Taking matters into his own hands, Perkins kidnaps the border guard and forces him to exhume his friend's rotting body. He takes the guard and corpse on a horseback journey well south of the border to the Mexican's hometown for a proper burial.
They all undergo changes -- especially the decaying corpse. The once-menacing border guard played by Barry Pepper makes enlightened discoveries about people south of the U.S. border.
"These are themes that are close to us and where we live," said Jones. "We worked hard to polish the dialogue and get the rhythm right in Spanish and English."
Pepper said he spent weekends away from the set with the Mexican family of Julio Cesar Cedillo, the man he shoots in the film. As on screen, Pepper's off-duty forays into Mexico opened his eyes to prejudices at the border and the warmth of Mexicans.
"When we'd cross the border to the U.S. with me driving, I'd be able to drive right through, but when Julio drove, we'd get stopped and asked 100 questions and the car would be searched," he said.
"It was primarily the poverty that initially overwhelmed me, just 100 yards away from the border you'd see abject poverty," Pepper said. "But the culture, the beauty of Mexico and the love I felt being welcomed was overwhelming and eye-opening for me." |
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