The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada

The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada 8pm Tuesday 03.10.06

Dir: Tommy Lee Jones USA 2005 120 mins 15A

Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Barry Pepper, Julio Cesar Cedillo, January Jones, Dwight Yoakam, Levon Helm

A lone quest for justice becomes an ode to friendship and the common ground between different cultures in The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada, the directorial debut from Oscar-winning actor Tommy Lee Jones. Working from a screenplay by Amores Perros writer Guillermo Arriaga, he has created a thoughtful, carefully crafted drama.
When his Mexican friend Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cesar Cedillo) is found in a shallow grave in the desert, 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, 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.
Veteran Oscar-winning cinematographer Chris Menges ensures that every image counts as the journey from Texas to Mexico proceeds through desert sands, rugged cliff-tops, 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. - Screen International