Hey guys
I donât get why the shot mexican in the mentioned movie was lying about his family/place of living.
I would be glad about an explanation
Hey guys
I donât get why the shot mexican in the mentioned movie was lying about his family/place of living.
I would be glad about an explanation
What a great movie that was though, canât remember the details though so someone else needs to step up to the plate and answer your question
That central question isnât answered in the film, rather weâre invited to speculate and search for explanations of our own. In a basic reading of the movieâs story, the photograph showing Melquiades Estrada behind a woman and three children as well as the non-existent village could be interpreted as an expression of his desire and longing to have both: a family and a home. In reality, Estrada lives in a miserable shack surrounded by goats.
In a metaphorical reading of the film, matters become more interesting. Melquiades Estrada (Julio CĂ©sar Cedillo) then functions as a spiritual (and maybe religious) catalyst for the movieâs other characters. His appearance out of nowhere â director Tommy Lee Jones frames his arrival at the ranch almost iconographically, like an epiphany, with a stark light-dark contrast â sets in motion a chain of personal changes and developments with grave consequences for all persons Estrada comes into contact with: of course for his friend Pete Perkins (Jones) and border patrolman Mike Norton (Barry Pepper), but also for Nortonâs wife Lou Ann (January Jones), diner waitress Rachel (Melissa Leo) and, on a lesser level, her lover Belmont (Dwight Yoakam), a twice impotent law enforcement officer.
The lie about Melquiadesâs family and his home village JimĂ©nez, the place where he wants to be buried, initiates a quest, both real and spiritual, for an unknown location, maybe for one we all have to situate and define on our own personal terms. Pete Perkins never doubts his friendâs words â never mind that nobody in Mexico has heard of JimĂ©nez and that Estradaâs alleged wife doesnât know who he is â and finally reaches his destination. Even Mike Norton, a man completely cut off from his humanity (emotionally, sexually), at the end of their journey shows signs of redemption and human affection, asking Perkins, âYou gonna be all right?,â the filmâs last spoken words.
The character of Melquiades Estrada reminded me of Pier Paolo Pasoliniâs Teorema, in which the sudden appearance of a young man provokes drastic changes in the persons who get to know him. Of course, in both films the spiritual and religious connotations are obvious â in Teorema it is quite clear that the protagonist is meant to be a Jesus substitute â but the strength of The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada lies for me in its ambiguity: it occupies a middle ground between spiritual/religious parable and caustic social study, only occasionally a little heavy-handed in its use of metaphors, for example of the old man (Levon Helm) as a God-like figure who has lost his son and his eyesight and spends his days listening to Spanish radio he doesnât understand; or in its dichotomy of Mexico and the United States, of Spanish and English, made clear from the beginning of the film when its title appears in both languages: Mexico being presented as the realm of humanity, affection and spirituality, the United States as the opposite: a place where completely estranged human beings abide in a consumerist limbo devoid of real feelings. In Estradaâs words: âI donât want to be buried on this side among all the fucking billboards.â
Fair enough.
Pasolini himself saw it differently, though. In a conversation with Lino Peroni in 1968, he explained that the ââvisitorâ is not to be identified with Christ but if at all, with God [âŠ]. He is [âŠ] the biblical visitor of the Old Testament, not the visitor of the New Testamentâ (quoted in Laura Betti [ed.], Pier Paolo Pasolini: A Future Life, n. p.: Associazione âFondo Pier Paolo Pasolini,â 1989, p. 114).
I will offer my perspective - in that (potentially) the lie was necessary to justify why he was there and the work he was doing. Itâs easy to become disillusioned or jaded in such desolate and unforgiving places.
While the lie is tied to Melquiades, there are other characters who may hold similar lies to warrant what theyâre doing and why theyâre there.
For example, the waitress who is married and âin loveâ with the chef. In contrast, January Jones doesnât find a lie for why sheâs there, and rejects the place.
So, Melquiades may have needed the lie to warrant leaving behind his past and for living where he does.