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 Entertainment | March 2006 
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
 Allan Hunter - scotsman.com
| Director: Tommy Lee Jones
Starring: Barry Pepper
Running time: 121 minutes |
Tommy Lee Jones has always been the kind of actor for whom less is more. His craggy, Mount Rushmore features and taciturn manner speak of a less complicated age when a man's worth was measured in terms of honour, loyalty and reputation. There is something old-fashioned in his manner which may explain why he excels as gruff authority figures and flinty men of the West. You can imagine him riding alongside John Wayne, sharing a camp fire and an easy silence with Gary Cooper or taking a last stand in the company of Randolph Scott.
Like Kevin Costner, Jones is part of a last generation of stars who have become the keepers of the flame in respecting the western as the quintessential American genre and ensuring that it survives. Jones' most notable contributions include the mini-series of Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove, his directorial debut The Good Old Boys, The Missing, and now his first cinema feature as a director, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.
Working from a screenplay by Amores Perros writer Guillermo Arriaga, Jones has created a film that matches his unfussy style as a performer. He puts his faith in straight storytelling and solid performances to create a thoughtful, carefully crafted drama in which a lone quest for justice blossoms into an elegiac ode to friendship and the common ground between different cultures.
Taking a bittersweet view of the West and the border dividing Mexico and America, The Three Burials may have a contemporary setting, but it recalls 1970s works such as Valdez Is Coming and Sam Peckinpah's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia - although Jones' view of human nature is more forgiving than the harsh world of betrayal and regret Peckinpah explored.
When his Mexican friend Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cesar Cedillo) is found in a shallow grave in the desert, rancher Pete Perkins (Jones) is determined to discover who killed him. Local sheriff Belmont (Dwight Yoakam) shows little interest in pursuing the matter and arranges for the body to be buried again in a pauper's grave.
The tenacious Perkins eventually identifies border patrol guard Mike Norton (Barry Pepper) as the guilty party. He kidnaps him, forces him to dig up the body of Melquiades, and the trio set off for Mexico to fulfil Pete's promise to bury his friend in his home town.
Like Arriaga's screenplay for 21 Grams, The Three Burials juggles with time, breaking the linear narrative to double back on itself, revealing a fresh piece of information or offering a different perspective on the same events. This adds a certain lyricism to our understanding of the bond that unites Perkins and Melquiades.
Arriaga has a talent for injecting his stories with the little ironies of life. Here, Norton does not know that Melquiades had been sleeping with his wife Lou Ann (January Jones) and Melquiades didn't know that she was his wife. The screenplay is also notable for some strongly drawn secondary characters, including a blind old man (Levon Helm) they meet in the desert, and waitress Rachel, played with intelligence and feeling by Melissa Leo.
Jones proves to be a sympathetic director, coaxing Pepper to one of his most convincing performances as a callous, black-hearted wretch who is encouraged to acknowledge the error of his actions. Jones contributes a typically understated performance of his own as the grizzled, careworn Perkins, suggesting that the friendship he enjoyed with Melquiades was a rare and cherished event in the life of a man who has kept himself to himself and always guarded his emotions.
Jones' assurance as a director is constantly underlined by his choice of collaborators, not just Arriaga but also British cinematographer Chris Menges, the Oscar-winning veteran of Kes, Local Hero, The Mission and countless others. Menges ensures that every image matters as the journey from Texas to Mexico proceeds through desert sands, rugged clifftops, blood orange skies and majestic mountain ranges. The film is rarely less than breathtaking. Underpinning the story is the belief that every individual life has meaning and every death is a tragedy.
It also begs us to understand that America and Mexico may be separated by the Rio Grande and a history of mistrust, but on a human level there is no real difference. All of this may be spelt out in a fairly obvious manner, but one can respect the intentions behind the film, savour the absorbing storyline, offbeat humour and the loving care lavished upon it.
Jones may have been struggling to generate much enthusiasm for his recent screen roles in dismal fare such as Men in Black 2 or Man of the House, but he seems to have invested his heart and soul in The Three Burials and it is one of the most distinguished achievements of this 30-year career. |
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