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 1 of 4

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada Our rating: Your rating: 1 2 3 4 Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: R (for language, violence and sexuality) Genre: Drama, Western Theater release: February 03, 2006 by Sony Pictures Classics Directed by: Tommy Lee Jones Runtime: 2 hours 1 minutes Cast: Tommy Lee Jones (Pete Perkins), Barry Pepper (Mike Norton), Julio Cedillo (Melquiades Estrada), January Jones (Lou Ann Norton), Melissa Leo (Rachel), Dwight Yoakam (Belmont) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

Tommy Lee Jones wrote his Harvard thesis on Catholic writer Flannery O'Connor. At the time it no doubt seemed like a subject with little relevance to the craft of filmmaking, but, in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, it serves him remarkably well. Jones himself has admitted that the spirit of O'Connor looms heavy on his directorial debut, and indeed, Jones' first solo flight bears uncanny aesthetic and theological similarities to O'Connor's short fiction—dark humor, startling violence, spiritual restlessness, a flare for the grotesque, and a keen understanding of man's depravity that will doubtless strike some moviegoers as mere misanthropism.

Of course, O'Connor's stories were all set in the American Southeast—usually Georgia—while Jones' film is a Western, set in both Texas and upper Mexico. Aside from that, though, you'd swear Jones had uncovered the great lost Flannery O'Connor story and turned it into a movie. He clearly views the world through a pair of O'Connor shaded glasses—he views humanity as twisted and ridiculously monstrous creatures that seem hell-bent on their own destruction. Maybe he's being too cynical, or maybe he's read the first chapter of Romans. Either way, Jones doesn't let his fiendish, freakish cast of characters turn his movie into a downer—like O'Connor, he mines the darkness and finds in it a gleaming sense of the absurd. Is it dark? Heck yeah. But it's also sharply funny, even when it cuts so close to the bone it makes us feel more than a little uncomfortable.

Tommy Lee Jones as Pete Perkins

As the title implies, Three Burials is a movie about death, but, more than that, it's a movie about friendship, grace, justice, and above all redemption. Jones stars as Pete, a rugged Texas cowboy who's hard up for a new hand to help him with his daily chores. Help comes in the form of Melquiades (Julio Cedillo), a Mexican alien looking for work to help support his wife and three kids. Mel promises to work hard, Pete promises not to turn him in to border patrol, and the two become intimate friends. (Not in the Brokeback way—more in the Frodo/Sam way.)

We learn all this in a series of fractured flashbacks; the film actually opens with Melquiades' death, and presents its first act totally out of chronological sequence. It's a smart move; Jones' exposition subtly and efficiently tells us everything we need to know about our characters. When the pieces are all in place and the chronology is straightened out, we already know much about Pete and his relationship with Mel, despite the fact that we've heard very little spoken by either man. We've also been introduced to a superb cast of supporting players, including Rachel (Melissa Leo), a middle-aged waitress who sleeps around with Pete and just about anyone else she can round up; Lou Ann (January Jones), a bored housewife whose only desire is to find a good shopping mall; and Mike (Barry Pepper), Luann's sex-hungry husband and an unorthodox member of the border patrol.

Mel (Julio Cedillo) and Pete became close buddies—but not in a 'Brokeback' way

This last character, it turns out, is the man who killed Melquiades. Pete finds out before too long, and then his mission begins. He breaks into Mike's house and kidnaps him, and the two of them set out with Melquiades' rotting corpse, heading south of the border to a mysterious town in Mexico. Pete's mission is simple: to keep his promise and bury his friend in his own land. Why he's bringing Mike along is a mystery we don't understand until the film's final moments.

Jones proves to be an efficient storyteller, and keeps things moving at a relatively brisk pace, but the story is told as much through imagery and symbolism as through traditional narrative. There's a chilling scene inside Melquiades' cabin, when Pete forces Mike to wear the clothes and drink from the cup of his murdered friend. He doesn't explain the significance of this, nor does he need to; the power of the imagery is not lost on us, nor on Mike. Likewise, a scene toward the end of the film, with Pete and Mike repairing a run-down building, is pregnant with meaning, and stands as a climactic moment in a film rife with provocative and suggestive scenes.

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