Los 3 Enterrios de Melquiades Estrada - 5th April 2006

I hate not being able to speak a language and it really annoys me that I found the title of this film unpronouncable, also that I think I've spelt it incorrectly above... This was a curious film; around half-way through it changed completely and went from being confusing and a bit irritating to engaging and rather moving.

The first half was indeed confused. For some reason Tommy Lee Jones decided to play around with the narrative: firstly we see the discovering of the body of Melquiades Estrada, then we flash forward and backward in time to see the events leading up to his death and several events completely unrelated to it. These little episodes were all a bit pointless, without meaning and definitely without the charm of Tarantino when he decides to do a similar thing. The only thing to recommend the first half was the sense of small-town despair
which infused practically every scene: from the empty desert to the chain-smoking regulars in the diner.

From shunning any kind of narrative in the first half, Tommy Lee Jones decides on a classic Quest motif for the second. He makes good on his promise to take the body of his friend back to his home town of Jimenez, dragging along his assassin with the intention of making him apologise to the family of the murdered Mexican.

As is usual in the good old Quest they meet lots of different people who help them out in different ways and both the travellers learn a little bit about themselves. Maybe I'm a bit old-fashioned but I found this reassuring.

One thing I did like that was a bit different was the fact that Tommy Lee Jones's character was slightly nuts, he only had a one-handed grasp on the reins of reality. The way he treated Melquiades's dead body, trying to do a make-shift embalming and setting it on fire was a prime example. Not quite Weekend at Bernie's but still fairly black humour.

I thought the ending was lovely. After finding out Melquiades's tales of his home town and family were contradictory to the truth, Tommy Lee Jones succeeded in deluding himself they had found Jiminez and he and his hostage both set about making Melquiades a suitable final resting place. Then it ended - there were no questions about what they would do being hunted by the border patrol and the police, it all ended with Melquiades's third and final burial.

It started slowly and strangely but almost made up for it with a moving ending: 6.