If you’re searching for the filmic representation of American morals, you need look no further than the western. The western is all about values: The heroes and villains either have them or they don’t. At least, that’s the way it used to be in the days of Gary Cooper (“High Noon”), where the only man who would stand up for what’s right had to face a pack of vengeful killers alone, protecting the town that abandoned him. In “The Three Burials of Melchiades Estrada,” everyone is their own sort of Gary Cooper: alone, abandoned, alienated — and sure that they know what’s right. The problem with that, however, is that no one ever is.
“Three Burials” is set in modern-day Texas along the Mexican border, in the kind of town where everyone can meet up in a motel diner to shoot the shit, find people to sleep with and dream about the mall two towns over. The only way to survive the desperate boredom is to have something to do every day, whether it be ranching or tackling the groups of Mexicans attempting to cross the border. The “hero” of the story is Pete (Tommy Lee Jones), a tough-as-a boot-heel-cowboy who easily befriends Melchiades (Julio Cesar Cedillo), an illegal immigrant looking for work on Pete’s ranch. The relationship between the two is the stuff of the classic western, the ‘til-death kind of friendship that blooms when two cowboys are out on the range together with nothing to rely on but their horses and each other (insert generic “Brokeback” joke here). So when Melchiades is gunned down by an overzealous, bigoted Border Patrol agent (Barry Pepper), it’s only natural for Pete to track down his best friend’s killer, force him to dig up Mel’s corpse, and take the two of them into Mexico so Mel can be buried with dignity in his hometown. At least, it seems like a good idea to someone like Pete, who takes the ethos of the western hero to nearly maniacal lengths.
The killer, Mike Norton, could be the manifestation of every Californian’s biggest red-state fears. Whether he’s jerking off to a skin mag in his patrol car, sucker-punching señoritas on the Rio Grande or bending his reluctant wife over the kitchen counter for a quick fuck during her soaps, Mike is the kind of authority-figure asshole that serves as the role model for highway patrolmen everywhere. It seems that he would deserve all the comeuppance he can get, but he too, is just another man; whether he learns from his bigoted mistakes or not — this is no “Crash” — you can’t help but feel a little sorry for someone who gets leaned on this hard by Pete’s western-hero badassery (“There are two people in this world: People with loaded guns, and people that dig. You dig.”).
It is the supporting characters that play the most memorable roles, however. During the small-town-Texas oriented first half of the film, Pete finds an enemy in the local policeman Belmont (a brilliantly pathetic Dwight Yoakam), who would rather catch the occasional sniff from a three-timing barmaid and lament his own impotence than do anything about a murder, especially that of an illegal alien. The said barmaid (actually, waitress at the town diner) is a wise Texas hussy played by Melissa Leo, who seems to enjoy sex with Pete and advice-filled conversations with Mike’s wife, Lou Ann (January Jones), who just wants to see the shopping malls back home in Ohio again. The denizens of the town paint a humorous picture of small-town, small-minded Texas — exactly the way that suburbanites and city slickers would imagine it.
It is when Pete and a kidnapped Mike take Mel’s body into Mexico — in a segment called “The Journey” — that the real western adventure begins. Here, the trio embarks on a surreal journey through the desert hills, with nearly as much rural weirdness as a lite “Apocalypse Now.” Notable scenes include a nearly dead blind man (Levon Helm, of the Band) who sits alone listening to Mexican radio, unable to speak a word of Spanish; a campfire of altruistic vaqueros, willing to give away their meat and tequila to a pair of strangers; a pack of newly crossed immigrants and their coyote leader; a calm Mexican village all soft pastels inside and Christmas lights on the outside; and the ever-helpful Don of El Toston, who knows everyone within three pueblos.
In fact, it is the Mexicans as a whole that are the least multifaceted characters of the film. They are a universally modest people, willing to give the shirt off of their back for the needs of a wandering gringo — always dignified, accommodating and ready to accept the simple pleasures of life. The film contrasts the inescapably alienated Texans — never quite heroes or villains — with the humbly heroic Mexicans, who surely aren’t the outlaws that Mike imagines them to be. The stubborn Gary Coopers from the north, it seems, can’t win the moral high ground against a people bent on surviving by helping one another out.
For as much as nearly every western attempted to develop some sort of ethos, be it doing good in a world of the fearful (“High Noon”), never selling out to the corrupt men of government and law (“Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid”) or simply sticking by your guns and your friends (“Lonesome Dove”), this modern western examines the stubborn and certainly idiotic character of every American raised on John Wayne, comparing it with the pastoral life of the dignified, altruistic Mexican. The notion may be more romantic than realistic, but what are westerns about if not romanticism?
Guillermo Arriaga brilliantly wrote “The Three Burials of Melchiades Estrada,” which seems to carry a bit more humor compared to his despairing “21 Grams” and “Amores Perros.” It is his biased, if effective, portrayal of the Mexican people that makes the greatest comment on the inadequacies of the American lifestyle and the general shittiness of the state of Texas. Tommy Lee Jones directs — his first movie behind the camera — and does his best not to distract from the dextrous writing and memorable characters (he gave each cast member a copy of Albert Camus’ “The Stranger” so they could better understand alienation). In the process, he crafts a classically existential film that couldn’t exist without the enduring legacy of the western.
