Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a review of Tommy Lee Jones' THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA, a flick that made a big splash at Cannes, got some glowing reviews and then kind of fell off the radar. Now we have another review from the Belgium International Film Festival. The word on this just keeps getting better and better! Enjoy!
Hi Aint It Cool Gang,
overhere in Belgium, we got to see The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada, the new Tommy Lee Jones film, at the International Filmfestival. Now, I don't really liked Tommy the past 5 years, seeing he's only made some rather large piles of shit. Then last may, hearing he made a film and that it was selected for the Cannes Film Festival, I thought: "well shit, maybe the old bugger's got it in him." Then I heard of the writer of this thing, a guy called Guillermo Arriaga. Knowing he did Amores Perros and 21 Grams, I was starting to like to prospect of seeing this film. But then, then dear readers, it won some awards. Arriaga won best screenplay at Cannes and i went: "good for hilm caus he's good" but the real shocker was Tommy winning best actor and i went: "Sweet tittyfucking Christ, why did Tommy wait 60 somewhat years to show me he knows a thing or 2 about good cinema." (See, i really don't believe that when you win an acting oscar, you are a great actor. Thats more of a in-the-heat-of-the-moment kind of thing. but winning in Cannes! Seeing who won this award before! I mean come on!!) And thus, Cannes ended. And the buzz died.....
Then one fine day in september, I looked at the programming for the Belgian filmfest and went: "Squeeze my nipple and call me a bitch! They're showing the three burials!!" So I saw it a couple of days ago. And it rocked my world.
I'm too lazy to write down and explain the entire plot to you, and i don't wanna spoil anything for you, so i'll just give you some tiny info on the plot. Tommy is a cowboy, works at a ranch near the mexican boarder. Melquiades is his best friend, and he's mexican. Barry Pepper plays the boarder patrol officer. That's the setup. At the start of the film, melquiades is dead. And all Tommy wants to do is get his dead friend home, someplace deep in mexico. And i'm pretty sure he's out for a bit of revenge. That's it, you aint getting more out of me about the plot! See it for yourselves you lazy bastards! and you should.
Consider the other scripts Arriage made before checking this out, you can tell it's one of his screenplays. It's rather non-linear but not like 21 grams. Just some fucking about wth time in the first act or so. This ain't no hollywood film. Tommy Lee really doesn't get going til about half way the film. The first part is more focused on Pepper. It's filmed in a rather quiet way, but beautiful nontheless. tommy's character is just wonderful. This could be the first not so active character to gain cultstatus. Not for how his character behaves (like Dafoe in wild at heart or Odman in true romance) but for who he is and how he thinks. If you think about the character like that you'll come to see that this is a unique man. It's non your ordinary john doe cowboy, but he's a remarkable character. Just really remarkable. Come to think about it, it's a fanfuckingtastic character.
If you really let yourself be swept up by this, you'll really love it and consider this one of the year's best but in a special way. Because it's not so easy to really put your finger on the thing that makes it as great as it is. But the lights turn on in the theatre and all you can think of is that your head feels like you've been slapped by a frying pan, manded by the devil, believing it's your fault. It's also a disturbingly funny film but i could not laugh, not even once. I was mesmerized, not only by the look of tommy, his eyes, his tone of voice, the landscapes of this film (my god the landscapes!), the correctness of barry pepper, the visually disturbing rotting corpse of melquiades, the music, it just all falls into a really nice frightening place.
Sincerely yours, Disco Banes
