The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada belong on that short list of recent films that have left me speechless, literally. I was unable to talk after I saw The Passion of the Christ, Million Dollar Baby, and now The Three Burials. It is something that Peckinpah would be proud of. In begins with a solid foundation of honor and loyalty between two men and it throws in a little madness for good measure. At a time when hundreds of lives are casually tossed aside in action films, here is an entire story where one man's life is honored and one man's death is avenged.

In his amazing directorial debut, Tommy Lee Jones also plays a hard-working cattle operator who hires an illegal Mexican immigrant named Melquiades Estrada to work as a cowboy. Melquiades is killed in a stupid, stupid shooting accident with a rookie Border Patrol agent. Jones sees that the local sherrif is going to do nothing about the case, so he takes justice into his own hands. And not simple justice (that would simply involve killing the crooked agent) but poetic justice, and this elevates the story to a higher realm of parable.

The film's writer, Guillermo Arriaga (who also did 21 Grams) was honored at Cannes 2005 as best writer, and Jones was named best actor. All the action takes place in a small border town with an appalling poverty of spirit. Just loooking at the hollow people in landscapes makes you feel empty. It is a hard land for men, and a heartbreaking one for women. The Border Patrol agent beats up a Mexican woman trying to enter the country and is told by his commander, "You went way overboard there, boy." He is violent and cruel, perhaps as a way of masking his own insecurity.

Before his death, Estrada often spoke to Jones about his wife and his family in Mexico. He carried a picture of them in his pocket wherever he went. Being miles away from my own family and loved ones, I knew the feeling. Estrada made Jones promise that in case anything should ever happen to him, he wanted to be buried back home in Mexico in the village where his wife and children are. Taking justice in his own hands, Jones kidnaps the border patrol officer and explains to him that they are going to ride into Mexico to give the man that he killed a proper burial.

There is a Native American saying, "All a man can do is pray for a good death." But before you earn that privalege, you would have to learn the value of a life. It is both cheap and priceless.

Falling Soldier

I was about 19 years old when I first saw a man die before my eyes. It was in the library. He was falling while standing. A bullet to the head. His consciousness at one with Brahman. His spirit flying on the back of a black crow en route to the undiscovered country. The Stygian boatman has received his fare. He and his picture break on through to the other side. The man who got close enough to capture a stranger's soul as it shuffled off it's mortal coil was my hero, Robert Capa.

The New World

The New World shows us not so much a clash of civilization as much as a discovery of them, and how both in all their awe and might are humbled by the face of nature. In most of the ultra-reclusive Terrence Mallick's work, from Days of Heaven to The Thin Red Line, Man merely plays a supporting role, and Nature is the real star. I have rarely seen naked beauty bared on film. The sun through the trees in Rashomon come to mind. There is also a sense of wonder, not only do the Native Americans stare at the English ships in amazement, the English are no less
humbled by the beauty of this new land and it's people, whom they dub "The Naturals." What we witness is the first meeting of two unknown worlds. They look at each other with child-like curiosity and a humility that comes from regarding their surroundings not as mere geography, but as extentions of self and spirit. It is sad seeing the beginning of what could have been a beautiful friendship knowing what history has in store for this relationship. But when they first see each other, they do not know that. There is a tender discovery, especially between John Smith and Pocahontas. We know that the Native Americnas helped the English survive their winter by teaching them to plant corn and how to store food for the winter. The English forts seem haphazardly built and has all the structural integrity of a shanty town. They get rewarded for their kindness and generosity by having their home taken away from then. The settlers would later on reward the Native Americans with smallpox-infected blankets. But at this point in time both their worlds and all their hopes are still new.

Inside

INSIDE

I made this collage from photographs that I liked. All the pictures are the same to me, except the one where the Bulgarian mother lost her son. It all shows caring of the young. Whether it's a black South Carolina woman looking after the neighbours kid or the egg yolk of a swell shark off the coast of Japan, all forms of life have the instict of self-preservation, call it the selfish gene.
But some forms of life, like people and penguins seem to be altruistic at times. I believe that on the inside, we are not that different.