|
The Three Burials of
Melquiades Estrada (2005)
 
|
Director:
Tommy Lee
Jones |
COUNTRY
USA |
GENRE
Drama/Crime |
NORWEGIAN TITLE
The
Three Burials |
RUNNING
TIME
121
minutes |
|
Producer:
Luc Besson
Michael Fitzgerald
Pierre-Ange Le Pogam |
Screenwriter:
Guillermo Arriaga |
Review
In his directorial debut, the lusciously
titled The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Tommy Lee Jones
finds himself in his native Texas telling a story about the conflicts in
the intersection between illegal immigration and heavy border-control.
Not surprisingly, it is a story from an exclusively human perspective,
told with a deep understanding of both the local state of affairs and
far more universal human mechanisms. As such, Jones' directorial job
reveals much of the same humanity that we've seen many times in his best
acting roles, and his lead performance in The Three Burials of
Melquiades Estrada epitomises exactly that. His Pete Perkins is in
many ways a cross between his Woodrow Call from
Lonesome Dove
and his award winning Ed Tom Bell from the Coen brothers' brilliant
No
Country For Old Men made two years after this film and
set in a similar environment.
Pete Perkins is as brilliantly written
and conceived character as these two. He is driven by a fundamental
goodness which makes his actions both understandable and perhaps even
commendable, but his brutality and vigilante behaviour seem to come from
a deep-rooted, almost involuntary perception of righteousness. It's as
if his territorial ancestors act through him. Jones incarnates this
masterfully, and won the Best Actor award in Cannes for his endeavours.
The Three Burials of Melquiades
Estrada moves probingly and elegantly along from contemporary crime
story via unorthodox road movie to allegoric existential discussion. The
film suggests that it's not severity or revenge that should be the focal
point for punishment or questions of guilt, but a sense of human
responsibility and compassion. Guillermo Arriaga's profound script is
handled in an aptly terrestrial manner by Tommy Lee Jones, and the
result is a film for both mind and body.
|
