Top Movies #19

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2006)

“You try to run away again, and I'll kill you. I guess you know that by now.” – Pete Perkins

This is a deeply moving and beautiful film. It is directed by and stars the great Tommy Lee Jones: a man who conveys more emotion his eyebrows than most actors convey with their whole face. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is a story about lonely men on a lonely journey. It is also a story about lonely people. The main arc of the film involves the accidental shooting of Pete Perkins’ newfound friend and illegal immigrant cattle-hand, Melquiades Estrada, by the violent, reckless border patrol, Mike Norton. When he realizes that local law enforcement will do nothing about the shooting, Perkins kidnaps Norton and forces him to dig up Estrada’s body. In a journey that is very reminiscent of Sam Peckinpah’s masterpiece, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, the two men carry the rotting corpse across the border into Mexico to find Estrada’s village for a proper burial.

The film also follows the lives of the women who are left behind, as they struggle to find meaning and amusement in their mundane lives. Norton’s wife, Lou Ann, eventually cracks and leaves town on a bus. The other main female character, Rachel, remains. She is a waitress at the local diner, is married to the cook, but spends her afternoons in hotel rooms with men who are just as lonely as she. Rachel clearly represents the future for Lou Ann. Lou Ann’s escape, therefore, is the most optimistic outcome we could anticipate for her character.

Everyone in this film is desperate for attention and companionship, and no one can find it where they should. Norton and his wife are newly married, but Norton brings a copy of Playboy to work. When the couple does have sex it is without passion, and she is watching a soap opera. Pete Perkins, however, found unlikely companionship in Estrada, and their bond brought about many months of happiness and adventure. With Estrada’s death, Perkins really has little choice. He will take his friend home, and Norton is going to help whether he wants to or not.

The movie’s most perplexing revelation is that Estrada’s village may be fiction. Why would Estrada have told Perkins about his beautiful village and abandoned family if neither existed? Once Perkins and Norton have followed Estrada’s directions to the approximate area in Mexico, no one in the neighbouring towns has heard of Estrada’s village. Perkins finds a woman who looks an awful lot like Estrada’s wife from the picture he has, but she denies it. Eventually, Perkins stumbles upon the dilapidated ruins of a village he has decided must be Estrada’s. Whether or not Perkins actually has found Estrada’s home village remains unclear; however, the final revelation of the film seems to suggest that this is irrelevant. What is important is that Estrada can finally be laid to rest, not in the dilapidated, abandoned ruins, but within Perkins’ deeply troubled and guilt-ridden conscience.