The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Last updated

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada Poster.png
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Tommy Lee Jones
Written by Guillermo Arriaga
Produced by Luc Besson
Michael Fitzgerald
Pierre-Ange Le Pogam
StarringTommy Lee Jones
Barry Pepper
Julio Cedillo
Dwight Yoakam
January Jones
Cinematography Chris Menges
Hector Ortega
Edited byRoberto Silvi
Music by Marco Beltrami
Production
companies
EuropaCorp
Javelina Film Company
Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics
Release dates
  • May 20, 2005 (2005-05-20)(Cannes)
  • September 11, 2005 (2005-09-11)(TIFF)
  • November 23, 2005 (2005-11-23)(France)
  • February 3, 2006 (2006-02-03)(US)
Running time
121 minutes [1]
CountriesFrance
United States [2] [3]
Mexico [4]
LanguagesEnglish
Spanish
Budget$15 million [5]
Box office$13.5 million [5]

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (also known as Three Burials) [6] is a 2005 neo-Western film [3] directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones and written by Guillermo Arriaga. [7] It also stars Barry Pepper, Julio Cedillo, Dwight Yoakam, and January Jones.

Contents

The film was inspired by the real-life killing in Texas of a teenager, Esequiel Hernandez Jr, by United States Marines during a military operation near the United States–Mexico border [8] as well as the novel As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, which contains the same plot premise and challenges encountered in the film. [9]

The film has many flashbacks with the same event shown from different perspectives.

Plot

Melquiades Estrada, a Mexican illegal immigrant working in Texas as a cowboy, shoots at a coyote which is menacing his small flock of goats. A nearby United States Border Patrol officer, Mike Norton, thinks he is being attacked and shoots, killing Melquiades. Norton buries Melquiades and does not report anything about the event. Melquiades' body is found and is reburied in a local cemetery by the sheriff's office. Evidence that he may have been killed by Border Patrol is ignored by the local sheriff, Frank Belmont.

Pete Perkins, a rancher and Melquiades' best friend, finds out from a waitress, Rachel, that the killer was Norton. Perkins had promised Melquiades that he would bury him in his home town of Jiménez, if he died in Texas.

Perkins ties up Norton's wife, Lou Ann, kidnaps him and forces him to dig up Melquiades' body. Then he begins a journey on horseback into Mexico with the body tied to a mule and his captive Norton in tow. Sheriff Belmont realizes that Perkins has kidnapped Norton, and so police officers and the Border Patrol begin to search for them. Belmont sees them heading towards the Mexico border, but as he takes aim at Perkins, he can't bring himself to shoot, and he returns to town, leaving the pursuit to the Border Patrol.

On their way across the harsh countryside, the pair experience a series of surrealistic encounters. They spend an afternoon with an elderly blind American, who listens to Mexican radio for company. The man asks to be shot since there is no one left to take care of him. He does not want to commit suicide because, he argues, doing so would offend God. Perkins refuses as that too would offend God. Norton attempts to escape and is bitten by a rattlesnake. They are eventually discovered by a group of illegal immigrants crossing into Texas. Perkins gives one of them a horse as barter payment for guiding them across the river to a herbal healer. She turns out to be a woman whose nose Norton had broken when he punched her in the face during an arrest. At Perkins's request, she saves Norton's life and then breaks Norton's nose with a coffee pot.

The duo encounter a group of Mexican cowboys watching American soap operas on a television hooked up to their pickup truck. The program is the same episode that was airing when Norton had sex with his wife in their trailer earlier in the movie. Norton is visibly shaken and is given half a bottle of liquor by one of the cowboys. We wee Norton's wife as she decides to leave the border town to return to her home town of Cincinnati. She has grown distant from her husband and seems unconcerned about his kidnapping, stating that he is "beyond redemption".

Perkins and Norton arrive at a town that is near the location of Jiménez, but no one in the town has heard of it. Perkins has some luck in locating a woman Melquiades described as his wife but, when Perkins confronts her, she states that she has never heard of Melquiades Estrada and lives in town with her husband and children. She does visibly react to a photograph Perkins shows her of Melquiades standing behind her and her children, stating that she does "...not want to get in trouble with her husband". Perkins continues onward searching for Melquiades' descriptions of a place "filled with beauty". Eventually they come upon a ruined house which Perkins feels was the one Melquiades had mentioned. Perkins and Norton repair the walls, construct a new roof and bury Melquiades for the third and final time.

Perkins then demands that Norton beg forgiveness for the killing, but Norton responds with obstinacy. Perkins fires several shots from his pistol around Norton until he complies, asking for forgiveness from Melquiades. Perkins accepts his hysterical grief and in passing calls him "son". Leaving Norton the second horse, Perkins rides away as Norton calls out and asking if he will be okay.

Cast

Production

The film was an international co-production film between France, the United States and Mexico. [10] Filming locations in Texas included Big Bend National Park, Big Bend Ranch State Park, Lajitas, Midland, Monahans, Odessa, Van Horn, and Redford. [11] [10]

Reception

The film received generally positive reviews; it currently holds an 85% rating at Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus states: "Tommy Lee Jones' directorial debut is both a potent western and a powerful morality tale." [12]

Awards and nominations

Cannes Film Festival [13]

Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics

Independent Spirit Awards [14]

Film Fest Gent

Related Research Articles

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption is a realist novella by Stephen King. It was first published in 1982 by Viking Press in his collection Different Seasons. It was later included in the 2009 collection Stephen King Goes to the Movies. The plot follows former bank vice president Andy Dufresne, who is wrongly convicted of murdering his wife and her lover and ends up in Shawshank State Penitentiary, where corruption and violence are rampant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tommy Lee Jones</span> American actor (born 1946)

Tommy Lee Jones is an American actor. He has received various accolades including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

The following is an overview of events in 2006, including the highest-grossing films, award ceremonies and festivals, a list of films released and notable deaths. Pixar celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2006 with the release of its 7th film, Cars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guillermo Arriaga</span> Mexican screenwriter and film director

Guillermo Arriaga Jordán is a Mexican novelist, screenwriter, director and producer. Self-defined as "a hunter who works as a writer," he is best known for his Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay nominations for Babel and his screenplay for The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, which received the 2005 Cannes Best Screenplay Award.

Jiménez is a town and seat of the municipality of Jiménez in the Mexican state of Coahuila, at an altitude of 250 meters above sea level. It is located on the confluence of the Río San Diego and the Rio Grande bordering with the U.S. state of Texas. It had a population of 1,160 inhabitants in the 2010 census, and is, unusually for a Mexican municipal seat, the second-largest locality in the municipality, after the town of San Carlos.

<i>Babel</i> (film) 2006 film by Alejandro González Iñárritu

Babel is a 2006 psychological drama film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and written by Guillermo Arriaga. The multi-narrative drama features an ensemble cast and portrays interwoven stories taking place in Morocco, Japan, Mexico, and the United States. An international co-production among companies based in the United States, Mexico and France, the film completes Arriaga and Iñárritu's Death Trilogy, following Amores perros (2000) and 21 Grams (2003).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joint Task Force North</span> American counterdrug and anti-terrorist operation

Joint Task Force North (JTF North), formerly Joint Task Force Six (JTF-6), is a multi-service operation by the United States Department of Defense for counterdrug and anti-terrorist operations. JTF-North is headquartered at Biggs Army Airfield, Fort Bliss, Texas. United States Northern Command is the controlling Unified Combatant Command.

<i>No Country for Old Men</i> 2007 film by Ethan and Joel Coen

No Country for Old Men is a 2007 American neo-Western crime thriller film written, directed, produced and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel. Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin, the film is set in the desert landscape of 1980 West Texas. The film revisits the themes of fate, conscience, and circumstance that the Coen brothers had explored in the films Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), and Fargo (1996). The film follows three main characters: Llewelyn Moss (Brolin), a Vietnam War veteran and welder who stumbles upon a large sum of money in the desert; Anton Chigurh (Bardem), a hitman who is sent to recover the money; and Ed Tom Bell (Jones), a sheriff investigating the crime. The film also stars Kelly Macdonald as Moss's wife, Carla Jean, and Woody Harrelson as Carson Wells, a bounty hunter seeking Moss and the return of the money, $2 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marco Beltrami</span> American film composer (born 1966)

Marco Beltrami is an American composer of film and television scores. He has worked in a number of genres, including horror, action, science fiction, Western, and superhero.

Julio César Cedillo is a Mexican actor, best known for the title role in the 2005 film The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vanessa Bauche</span> Mexican actress (born 1973)

Vanessa Bauche is a Mexican television, theatre and film actress. She is best known for playing as Nora in the Apple TV+ series “Acapulco”. She also appeared in many Mexican television series and movies.

Esequiel Hernández Jr. was an 18-year-old American high school student killed on May 20, 1997, by United States Marines in Redford, Texas, located approximately one mile from the United States–Mexico border. Hernández was the first American civilian to be killed by military personnel while on duty in the United States since the 1970 Kent State shootings, and led to Secretary of Defense William Cohen issuing a temporary suspension of troop patrols near the U.S.–Mexico border. The shooting inspired the 2005 movie The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada by Tommy Lee Jones, and the 2007 documentary The Ballad of Esequiel Hernandez.

Rodger Boyce is an American character actor who has appeared in more than a dozen feature films, including Best Picture Oscar winner No Country for Old Men one of three films he has done with Tommy Lee Jones. Other notable feature film appearances include Where the Heart Is, A Perfect World and Lone Star State of Mind. He has also appeared in some 25 made-for-television movies. In addition, his television work has included episodic appearances in TV series ranging from Dallas, Dangerous Curves and The Big Easy to Walker, Texas Ranger, Roughriders, The Good Guys and even Wishbone. Rodger began his acting career in theater, and he has occasionally returned to the stage, appearing in summer stock and regional theater productions. A graduate of Texas Tech University where he majored in journalism and English, Rodger is a native Texan and former newspaper reporter and editor, and for a number of years was a community college teacher and administrator. He and his wife Juddi, a professional counselor/therapist, live in Gainesville, Texas.

<i>Lonesome Dove</i> (miniseries) 1989 TV mini-series

Lonesome Dove is a 1989 American epic Western adventure television miniseries directed by Simon Wincer. It is a four-part adaptation of the 1985 novel of the same name by Larry McMurtry and is the first installment in the Lonesome Dove series. The novel was based upon a screenplay by Peter Bogdanovich and McMurtry. The miniseries stars an ensemble cast headed by Robert Duvall as Augustus McCrae and Tommy Lee Jones as Woodrow Call. The series was originally broadcast by CBS from February 5 to 8, 1989, drawing a huge viewing audience, earning numerous awards, and reviving both the television Western and the miniseries.

Juan Gabriel Pareja is an American actor. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, to parents who immigrated from Colombia, Pareja is a graduate of the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

Merideth Boswell is an American set decorator and production designer. She is best known for her work in the films Apollo 13 (1995) and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), both of which earned her nominations for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction. Boswell was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in ceramics from the University of Arkansas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ignacio Guadalupe</span> Mexican actor

Ignacio Guadalupe Martínez Martán known professionally as Ignacio Guadalupe is a Mexican film, television and stage actor.

The 5th AARP Movies for Grownups Awards, presented by AARP the Magazine, honored films released in 2005 made by people over the age of 50. This was the first year that winners were announced at an in-person ceremony instead of being listed only in an issue of AARP the Magazine. The ceremony was hosted by Angela Lansbury and Shelley Berman at the Bel-Air Hotel in Los Angeles on February 7, 2006. Capote won Best Movie for Grownups, and David Strathairn won the award for Breakaway Accomplishment for Good Night, and Good Luck.

Missing in Brooks County is a 2020 feature-length documentary, directed and filmed by Lisa Molomot and Jeff Bemiss. Its subject is the passage of illegal migrants through Brooks County, Texas, and specifically how thousands die of dehydration and exposure hiking some 35 miles (56 km) across open fields in 100 °F (38 °C) heat, to avoid the Border Patrol internal checkpoint near Falfurrias, Texas. The ground is sandy and taxing to walk in, and lack of landmarks makes it easy for migrants to get lost and go in circles. Brooks County leads the nation in migrant deaths; most bodies are never found, and most of those found are never identified. The county sheriff calls the county "the biggest cemetery in the United States". News stories have called it "migrants' Death Valley."

References

  1. "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada - Los Tres Entierros De Melquiades Estrada (15)". British Board of Film Classification . January 4, 2006. Retrieved April 20, 2013.
  2. "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada". British Film Institute . London. Archived from the original on January 14, 2009. Retrieved November 11, 2012.
  3. 1 2 Buchanan, Jason. "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada". Allmovie. Retrieved November 11, 2012.
  4. "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada". shotonwhat.com. June 15, 2019. Retrieved August 21, 2022.
  5. 1 2 "Los tres entierros de Melquiades Estrada (2005) - Financial Information". The Numbers . Retrieved March 10, 2018.
  6. "Three Burials - the Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada". Amazon.co.uk. Retrieved September 23, 2017.
  7. Barra, Allen (October 2006). "Screenings: Now on DVD: A Brand-New Classic Western". American Heritage. Archived from the original on March 3, 2007.
  8. Dargis, Manohla (December 14, 2005). "Dead Man Rising: An Odyssey in Texas". The New York Times . Retrieved July 11, 2008.
  9. Sills, C. Warner (June 15, 2006). "As Melquiades Lays Dying". Indiana Daily Student. Retrieved September 16, 2019.
  10. 1 2 "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (press kit)" (PDF). Mongrel Media. Retrieved January 14, 2023.
  11. "From the Archives - Location as a character: 'The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada'". gov.texas.gov. September 23, 2021. Retrieved January 14, 2023.
  12. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada at Rotten Tomatoes
  13. "Festival de Cannes: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved December 6, 2009.
  14. "21st Independent Spirit Awards Coverage". DigitalHit.com. Retrieved January 14, 2023.