The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Country: USA/ France
Dir: Tommy Lee Jones
Genre: Drama/Western
Rating: 6.9/10

Academy award winner Tommy Lee Jones makes his directorial debut with Guillermo Arriaga's The Three Burials..... and I should say it's been a rather impressive one. It is a tale of murder and injustice. And Like his other stories (21 Grams, and Amores Perros), screenwriter Arriaga (whom I call the Mexican Equivalent of Charlie Kaufman) weaves yet another tale which is nonlinear in its narration. But this nonlinearity unlike in his other stories is only limited to the first-half of this movie, and does not have multiple threads running in parallel like in Amores Perros, or 21 grams. To me, these movies represent a whole new genre of cinema. An articulate camerawork with intelligent sequence construction makes for an interesting storyline, and not just merely reflects on "what to show" but palpably on "how to show". This type of movie-making has brought about skillful and thought-provoking developoments in story line, which constantly keeps the viewer glued to the screen and on "high Alert".

The Story is set in Permian Basin, Texas, and is about a Mexican cowboy (Julio Cedillo) who gets killed under mysterious circumstances. Jones learns about the killer and kidnaps him and sets to ensure that justice is served with or without the local police authorities. Well...anyway the story is more than that (It also takes a look at some of the existing social issues).

The movie is beautifully filmed, although early in the movie the editing is not very impressive. Tommy Lee Jones may be a director to watch out for like the veteran Clint Eastwood. Jones won the best actor at this years Cannes Film Festival, and so did Arriaga for his screenwriting. I am sursprised!! that the academy did not take notice of this. Jones and Pepper have given superb performances. I would especially like to see Pepper in more films. All in all, this movie deserves a lot of credit for writing and direction.