Movie Review: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2006) 

Directed by Tommy Lee Jones

Written by Guillermo Arriaga 

Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Barry Pepper, Julio Cedillo, Dwight Yoakam, January Jones 

Release Date February 3rd, 2006 

Published February 21st, 2006

There are places we won't believe exist anymore. Modernization and technology we would assume has phased these places out of existence. Places like the old west. Those lawless dust bowls filled with characters ready to drink, fight and kill if they feel like it.

However, watch the headlines and take a look to the south. The old west is still out there in small pockets of the border between America and Mexico. These are places where cowboys still ride horses and carry shotguns. Places where border patrol guards ride like old school texas rangers delivering swift justice to potential border crossers.

As all await Washington's decision to modernize the border crossing with modern fence technology, the old west attitude thrives in lawlessness and old school justice. The new video The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is a snapshot of this new 'old west' attitude. Directed by Tommy Lee Jones, Three Burials takes a cursory glance at border policy with a broader eye on how a modern society often doesn't evolve as a whole.

Melquiades Estrada (Juan Cedillo) was a kind soul simply out to make money for his family. Quiet, unassuming and hard working it is no surprise that he would earn the trust and friendship of a hard working roughneck rancher like Pete (Tommy Lee Jones). Bonding over heads of steer and women of ill repute, Mel and Pete became brothers.

When Melquiades is murdered Pete first seeks modern justice, an investigation by the local sheriff (Dwight Yoakam). However, unable to escape old west attitudes, it isn't long before Pete is ready for some old school biblical justice.

The man who killed Melquiades is a mystery to Pete but not those of us in the audience. He is Mike a newly arrived, wet behind the ears college dropout who has just accepted a job as a border patrol officer. Moving with his wife LouAnn (January Jones) to a nameless border is for both like a trip back in time some 100 years. Used to the creature comforts of the mall and cable television, the former High School sweethearts, voted most likely to succeed, find themselves failures even in this dust covered piece of nowhere.

Mike has grown quite bitter since his days as a king of high school. Spiritually defeated he takes occasion to let out his aggressions on border crossing mexicans. Warned more than once by his supervisor about his brutal assaults and arrests, it is no wonder that he is the in the killing of Melquiades.

The fates can be cruel. While you might believe that Mike in his typically brutish fashion murdered Melquiades  in cold blood, the facts are quite different. The facts however, matter not to Pete who simply and singleminded seeks justice and also seeks to keep a blood promise to Melquiades.

Pete must take Mel back to Mexico and bury him in his hometown and Pete plans to make certain Mike witnesses this funeral first hand.

Thus begins the true thrust of The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada. A death march across the barren desert as irony of ironies a pair gringos crosses the border into Mexico.

Written with hard bitten determination by Guillermo Arriaga, Three Burials has a soft spoken hypnotic pitch to it's dialogue. While Arriaga's words often ache to be screamed, the actors remain flat and emotionless. No one does stonefaced aggressiveness like Tommy Lee Jones and though his words ar never shouted, the harsh sadness and anger behind each is beyond resonant.

Barry Pepper as Mike is really the only character given to histrionics but like the rest of the cast, it's the croaky, whispered moments that make the most noise. As Mike makes his forced march across the desert at the barrel of Pete's old style six shooter the journey becomes as much Mike as Pete's or as the late Mel's. Is Mike redeemed by this forced journey? That is for you to discover by watching Barry Pepper's haunting, mesmerizing performance.

Though set in modern day America, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada evokes the old west of Peckinpah and Leoni in it's burnt out desert browns and oranges. Picturesque scenery covered in layers of blood and dirt that only old west milieus can convey. This is as beautiful looking a film as it is well acted and moving.

There is another aspect of this story that few people want to comment on. An undercurrent of homoeroticism that is actually quite common in supposedly macho movies bubbles beneath the surface of this manly tale of revenge. Though Pete indulges in an affair with a local married waitress well played by Melissa Leo, it becomes clear that Melquiades is his one and only love. Now neither man would even admit or act upon it, but the bond between the two men, especially expressed after Mel's death, is deeper than Pete can deal with out loud.

There are many layers to peel away while experiencing this intense revenge fantasy. Layers of pain, heartbreak, denial and redemption. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is a treasure trove of subtext and of visual artistry. A truly must see picture for anyone who loves movies.

Movie Review: Babel

Babel (2006) 

Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Written by Guillermo Arriaga

Starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael Garcia Bernal, Rinko Kikuchi 

Release Date October 27th, 2006 

Published November 24th, 2006 

Writer Guillermo Arriaga and director Alejandro Gonzalez-Inarritu are the masters of oppressive atmospherics. Their films have an enveloping sadness that makes early German expressionism seem downright giddy in comparison. Amores Perros and 28 Grams are both exceptionally well made and involving films but neither is an experience that most film goers can take more than once.

The same could be said of their latest, and allegedly final, teaming the towering drama Babel. This multi-arc drama about the fabric of life woven across borders is an overwhelmingly sad experience. Ostensibly the travels of one weapon and the lives it destroys, Babel follows the path of violence, racism and loneliness around the globe in one fascinating and wearying film.

This review contains spoiler information. I recommend you see Babel before reading this review.

In Morocco an American couple, Richard (Brad Pitt) and Susan (Cate Blanchett) are on a vacation with a lot of subtext. Susan doesn't want to be here, Richard can't imagine being anywhere else because anywhere else would remind him of the pain back home. The two lost a child and blame each other for it. The pettiness that followed the child's death has driven what would seem to be an insurmountable wedge between them.

In one fell swoop however all of Richard and Susan's problems become meaningless. Traveling on a bus in the midst of the desert; a bullet pierces the window next to Susan striking her in the shoulder. Bleeding heavily and with the only hospital four hours away on this creaky old bus, Richard and the traveling interpreter Anwar (Mohammed Akhzam) make the rash decision to head to a tiny Moroccan village, Anwar's home, where a veterinarian is the only available doctor. They will wait there as international intrigue and red tape hold up a rescue by the American embassy.

Back in Richard and Susan's home, their two remaining children are being cared for by their nanny, Amelia (Adriana Barraza). Her son is getting married and she has plans to be there but with Susan being shot, mom and dad will not make it home any time soon. In a rash decision, after exhausting all other possibilities, Amelia decides to take the children with her to Mexico for the wedding. A fateful decision given her hotheaded nephew Santiago (Gael Garcia Bernal) and his penchant for trouble.

Just watching the way Santiago carries himself on the drive to the wedding, and at the wedding, you can sense trouble coming and as they wait to cross the border back to America, Santiago, slightly inebriated and carrying a weapon he doesn't want found, you can see the trouble coming and it leads to a drawn out series of heart rending scenes that find Amelia and two young children wandering in the desert before sunrise in search of the border.

The connections between those stories are clear as are the consequences. The third of the stories told in Babel has only a tenuous connection to the rest. Rinko Kikuchi plays Chieko a deaf mute teenager in Japan whose mother has died, an apparent suicide, and her father Yasujiro (Koji Yakusho) is absent. Chieko is obsessed with sex and is  adventurous in the ways only an inexperienced teenager can be.

Chieko's father provides the link to the other stories, his own trip to Morocco and to leave as a gift for his guide, a Winchester rifle, is the catalyst of the whole story. The rifle falls into the hands of a pair of very young goat herders Yussef (Boubker Ait El Caid) and his brother Ahmed (Said Tarchani) and as they childishly test the weapons power and distance; they touch off an international wave that soon consumes them and everyone else.

The multi-layered stories told in Babel are filled with sadness, heartbreak, redemption and humanity. Gonzalez-Inirritu and Arriaga craft a story that while it is extraordinarily well told, it is also oppressive in its sadness and human tragedy. Yes, the sadness and tragedy reveal truths about humanity and love but the journey is arduous and not one you will likely want to take again.

Of the performances, the bravest is young Rinko Kikuchi's who reveals so much of herself, emotionally and physically, that her presence becomes unnerving with every appearance. Though her connection to the plot is tenuous her overall disconnection in her life, through her impairment and her emotional state, she becomes a metaphorical conduit for the the disconnectedness of the other characters in the film.

While Cate Blanchett's role is limited by her character's injury, Brad Pitt as her husband has a number of meaty moments and nails each one of them. Pitt has always been a star but in Babel Pitt shows a maturity that is more than just his newly graying temples. Stripped of his charm, his model perfect features masked by an ugly salt and pepper beard, Pitt is a real human being in Babel rather than the movie god of the past. It's a transformative performance and a potential academy award nominee.

Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inirritu is so observant of his characters and so delicate in telling their stories that his films can kind of sneak up on you emotionally and devastate you more with unexpectedness than most other films. His gentle observation is given an edge by a propellant story by Guillermo Arriaga that moves inexorably towards tragedy. Every step of the way feels inevitable even as we silently call out to these characters to make different choices, the choices that are made are fated and that much more powerful in demonstrating the characters powerlessness.

Babel is a movie of such profound, claustrophobic, sadness that  to assign popcorn entertainment aspects to it seems a futile, almost disrespectful thing. The most appealing thing about the film, the reason to see the film, is for the performances. This exceptionally talented cast will be a big part of the Oscar telecast in February.

I have already praised Rinko Kikiuchi's brave and revealing performance. Her main competition in the Best Supporting Actress race is likely to be co-star Adriana Barraza whose Amelia makes wrong decisions from the first moment but still manages to win your sympathy. No matter the circumstance, son's wedding or no, there is no way to justify her taking those two very young children to Mexico, and yet Barraza makes us understand this decision and easily holds our sympathy as things spin tragically out of control.

If I have one issue with Babel it is the Jobian sadness heaped on Pitt and Blanchett's characters. They are a married couple who are on vacation recovering from the loss of a child when Blanchett is shot. As she is in surgery in Morocco, her remaining children are facing grave danger in the desert border between Mexico and America. Are we to believe that such tragedy could be heaped on one family in such a short time? It's a minor quibble and the drama and storytelling being as strong as they are make it easy to forgive.

Babel is oppressively sad and not a movie you will likely experience more than once. As an experience however, it is more than worth having once. Well acted, written and directed, Babel is an almost certain Oscar contender so if you are a fan of Hollywood's biggest night you will want to have seen the movie that will likely over-populate the acting categories. Babel is an extraordinary film for fans of great drama and great filmmaking. If an experience of near un-ending tragedy and heart wrenching sadness is not the kind of moviegoing experience you want, then I would not recommend Babel.