I am certainly still processing “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” but it was clear as soon as the film was over that this was a beautiful picture. I felt a human quality to so many of the 
characters that we haven’t necessarily seen in our previous films. In the way that Rachel is able to separate her sex life from her husband, yet struggles to understand her own emotions towards Bob and Pete, in the way that Lou Ann requires Mike to murder someone before deciding to leave him, or in the way that Pete is clearly maddened by the death of his friend Mel to the point that he cannot think of anything but bringing him home to his family and bringing justice to his death. I felt as though so many of the characters were struggling to accept realities they knew were true for themselves, and it took some hard hitting moments to face the facts.
This I felt was most true in the final scene in which Pete “discovers” the town that Mel was from as a way of mentally allowing himself to feel at peace with burying his friend. He came to this stony hedge in the middle of a valley with no one in sight and convinced himself by “convincing” Mike that he had found the town of Jimenez. In this way I felt that he had realized consciously or subconsciously that he was not going to find Mel’s home, but that he still needed to give him a home. This in some ways was the most beautiful point of the movie for me. I can’t quite explain why but his desperation to bury Mel in the resting place of his family was so necessary for Pete that he had to also believe that he had found it. After witnessing the first burial of Mel (in a bush, being eaten by a coyote), followed by being covered in dirt by a crane, he truly was given a sacred burial.
I think the aspect of the film I found the most confusing was the character of Mike. From the beginning of the film, I had a hard time pegging down his intentions. It was clear that he was a dominant/aggressive male who felt he needed to keep people in line by exerting physical power over them. First depicted by his beating of the Mexican travelers who failed to cross the boarder. Secondly, by the way he questionably raped his wife. My perspective of that scene depicted a woman (Lou Ann) who knew that she couldn’t fight or get away from him. Her face looked numb as if this was routine for her. From that moment of the film, I couldn’t think of one reason why she would stay with him other than that she didn’t know what it was to be independent (likely more about her character than his). His actual murder of Mel didn’t actually seem very violent to me. He clearly was caught off guard while jerking off to porn and didn’t think of considering why else he would have heard gun shots other than as an attack on his life. However, the fact that it was a Mexican and not a white American who was holding the gun likely allowed him to have less uncertainty about the intentions of the shooter due to the blatant racism displayed by American boarder guards towards Mexicans. I think the thing that confused me the most about his character was if he truly did feel the need to repent by the end of the film. As other students noted, he did seem as though he was upset by watching the soap opera out in the dusty skirts of Mexico, however I feel that this could also be seen as him missing home, just as much as feeling guilt towards the treatment of his wife. I’m not sure that I believe that argument, but I think its possible. He also refused to ask forgiveness to Mel/his family once they’d buried him until Pete literally shot at him (he didn’t have any bullets but Mike wasn’t aware of that). I was also uncertain about his final question at the end to Pete along the lines of ‘are you going to be alright?’ which I felt was more of a reflection of how he felt about himself than Pete. Clearly Pete was capable of surviving in Mexico much better than Mike.
This post has turned into a bit of a rant, but this is all to say that I felt there were many interpretations of the actions of the characters in this film and I am excited to hear everyone’s perspectives in class.
Hi Kat, the character I found most intriguing was that of Pete. He is a gaucho-like relic from a past era, when being a cowboy meant being part of a cowboy society and all that it entails. That society is gone. Pete is alone in a rapidly changing world that he no longer understands. His commitment to bury Mel in Mexico, in his mind the right thing to do, is what he does understand. Interesting, Tommy Lee Jones will be a Texas marshal near the border 4900in No Country for Old Men a couple of years later, again finding himself in a modern world he doesn’t comprehend.
Hi John,
Thanks for your thoughts. I like your perspective of Pete as someone who is in some ways living in the past. Therefore he is living out his form of authentic justice. I wonder if in some ways, Mike realizes at the end that in his mind, Pete is a hero.
Yes, something I’d hope we might have discussed in class was whether this was in fact a rather conservative, even old-fashioned movie. Or to put perhaps the same point in a different way: if this is in fact an apolitical if not even anti-political political movie. The article we read might lead us to think so, too: it argues, I think, that this is a movie more about ethics than about (identity) politics. But isn’t it disappointing on some level that Pete’s concern for Melquiades seems to rest on him being a friend, rather than on his being the victim of an injustice that’s more or less systematic?
I couldn’t help wondering how the border area has effect on the fact that so many characters are struggling to accept the realities and their true selves. It’s like we need to face more nature so to face the true “me”. When you are surrounded by the “civilization”, and you have to put on “make-ups” so to blend in the “society”, you hardly have time to ask who is doing this and that? Is it really me doing so or it’s the civilized fake “me”? Lou Ann likes shopping, and when she is shopping, she doesn’t think too much, but all the struggles happen when she is alone, and lonely in the cafeteria. And talking to a friend is another necessity. By this kind of conversation you get to know yourself.
I agree that the final scene is “the most beautiful,” and perhaps also the most intriguing. The entire journey threatens to become a wild goose chase: all they find are ruins. Yet Pete decides to convince himself (and Mike?) that they have in fact arrived at the place they were seeking. Isn’t this willed self-deception? But perhaps the movie’s suggesting that a bit of such self-deception isn’t such a bad thing. That perhaps we should accept a bit more fiction, and not make such a big deal about the fact that our fantasies turn out to be precisely that.