Review of The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) by Carlg. — 10 Feb 2006

Although superficially this film is about injustice and revenge, it lives within its subplot of transformation and transcendence. From the honestly but sympathetically portrayed racist squalor of a small Texas town, it moves to the grand vistas of the Mexican desert, while at the same time characters who are normally distanced by race and class come together under pressures that break those constraints and allow them to relate at a more fundamental human level.

While it is common in a film for characters to be transformed, in this case the characters are illustrative of a broad set of dysfunctional relationships that afflict the broader society, and their transformative experience is something the director seems to think most of us could use in significant doses.

This particular dose can be delivered in the comfort of a movie theater and is highly recommended.