Three is a Magic Number

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is a title that most people wouldn't consider. Americans, you see, don't like dealing with names that are more than about 6 letters long. After that, they simply lose interest. South Indian names, Greek names, Thai names, Nigerian names, many of these span a gazillion letters, and we just give up after two syllables.

And yet, it's a relatively clever idea, because once you watch the film, you learn how it should be pronounced, and it doesn't seem that bad. Mel. Key. Ah. Des. That's the name.

This is a bit of a showy role for actor and director, Tommy Lee Jones. Jones gives about half his lines in Spanish.

I went into the film with modest expectations. I had heard that Tommy Lee Jones had won acting awards for his role as Pete Perkins, a man who befriends a Mexican migrant worker. Most of this friendship is played in flashback.

Despite the amount of time spent in Mexico, and the amount of Spanish that's spoken, the Mexican characters are fairly weak. There's a history to Pete's character that's left blank, in particular, why he and Melquiades get along. The film suggest that it's guilt that makes Pete do what he does.

And what he does is this. Early in the film, the body of Melquiades is found, shot. Pete discovers that the person who's done this is a border patrol guy who's having anger management issues. The film's set up to make Mike Norton the "heavy", i.e., the bad guy, which is typically unusual for an independent film trying to avoid stereotypes.

In a key early scene, when the border patrol rounds up several Mexicans at the border, and two are running away, he punches both the man and woman, for running away. He's come to Texas with his wife because that's where the job has taken them. Mike leads a fairly empty life. His wife reluctantly has sex with him in the kitchen, so he can satisfy his base needs. He reads Hustlers and Penthouses, and is generally shown to be a loathsome, uncaring person.

And yet, it's about his character as much as it is about Pete's. Although the film doesn't peddle that much in stereotypes, the Mexicans are generally one-note characters. Melquiades himself is a nice guy. That's it. He says he has family in Mexico. He's really awkward when Pete sets them both up with women, and that woman turns out to be Mike, the border patrol guy's wife, yet, the plot seems to cry out for Mike seeking revenge on the man who slept with his wife, but instead, the death is purely accidental. Mike thinks he's being shot at by Melquiades, who is actually shooting at a coyote. Mike fires and kills the man, because he thinks he's being shot at. It's all a misunderstanding.

This kind of film would never have been made thirty, forty years ago (or more), in the heyday of Westerns. Much like Brokeback Mountain hardly fits the Western genre conventions, this film doesn't either.

Although it, too, is set in the rural West (well, in this case, Texas), it is modern. Melquiades, at one point, goes to a window to a shop selling oversized televisions, high-def, which is only a recently phenomenon, and so this ties in the new with the old, showing technology seeping in, even in the most backwards of places.

There are many moments that attempt to be slice of life, or just plain strange, which is why it doesn't fall into traditional story telling. For example, the police are chasing down Pete, who kidnaps Mike and the body of Melquiades, with the goal of taking them both to Mexico where they can properly bury Melquiades, according to his wishes.

The sheriff aims a rifle sight, and eventually decides not to shoot. At which point, he gets a cell phone call from a waitress, the wife of the cook (think Flo and Mel from the show, Alice), who wants to have a fling with the sheriff that evening and is planning it. There are many such absurdists moment.

At one point, fire ants are starting to eat at the dead body of Melquiades. Pete tries to remove them, but the ants sting him. So, he eventually douses the head and body with liquor, and lights him on fire, and then puts out the fire. The oddity of treating the body with a lack of respect just adds to the strangeness of this film. They encounter an elderly blind man who gives the food, like a scene out of Young Frankenstein. He listens to radio from Mexico, but doesn't understand the words. He just likes the way Spanish sounds.

There's a flip scene in Mexico. Pete and Mike meet up with some Mexicans sitting outside, watching a show on their portable TV. It is the same show Mike's wife was watching while Mike was having sex with her (disinterested, in the kitchen). The Mexicans watch it, but don't have any idea what's going on, because it's in English.

The film seems to be an allegory in the way language divides us, and the stereotypes we have. In the end, it becomes a powerful statement about lives we take. Perhaps it's a commentary on war. In war, people are killed, and that's that. Often, the killers have to block out the idea that they are killing people.

This film tries to represent the idea of Melquiades, if not who he was in reality. It's too bad that Melquiades is generally a good guy. He's no saint, by any means, just a shy guy trying to do good for himself. It becomes a more interesting statement if Melquiades was not a pleasant person, because it brings to question why Pete does what he does. Even so, it's an odd thing for Pete to kidnap Mike and drag both of them to Mexico, so Mike can witness the life that Melquiades lived.

If there's one criticism I have of the film, it's that with as much respect as Jones has for Mexicans, they honestly don't play as nuanced a role as most of the white Americans. They are seen to be good people, except the fiery woman, who's nose was punched by Mike, who gets even by whacking Mike. Oh yes, and Mike gets hit a lot. The bully is, after all, a coward too.

And that's a funny thing, because the message of the film is about the importance of human life, and how we often fail to appreciate that each person is someone. As they drag Melquiades body around, it's clearly meant to be a representation of the real man. This act is purely symbolic, and his body is also symbolic. The real man has gone. This is why Pete doesn't seem to mind that he has to "abuse" the body (fill it with antifreeze, to prevent it from decaying and being eaten). The lesson that's most important is to Mike, who, despite the apparent torture he's going through (being kidnapped, beat up, and dragged unwillingly to Mexico), that for the first time in his life, he's getting some meaning to his life, by understanding the death of someone else.

He's a man so consumed with anger and aimlessness that he doesn't know what it means to live. The film doesn't give any hints as to what will happen to Mike. His wife has abandoned him to return back, presumably to Cincinnati. Will he go after her? Is he a better man?

And in the end, did we end up thinking about Melquiades and his three burials? Or did we end up thinking about Mike, and how his life has changed?