I don't get it. Can someone please explain?
shareI am confused on those two things as well. Maybe Tommy Lee Jones' character was just plain crazy or he felt the need to find a final resting place for his friend.
share[deleted]
For someone so distressed about having "wasted" your "valuable" time watching this film, you're certainly devoting a lot of time to pointless posting about it. Typing/spelling lessons would be a more productive endeavor for you.
shareCouldn't figure out those two topics either.
I'm actually from a small town named Jimenez, Coahuila....which was one of the reasons I went to see this movie after I read the synopsis.
When Melquiades draws the map for Tommy Lee Jones' as to where Jimenez is located...that was a pretty good general location.
Jimenez is right on the border, between Acuña & Piedras Negras Coahuila or ( Del Rio & Eagle Pass)
I thought they were going to show my hometown on the big screen, but they didn't.
Still enjoyed the movie.
Near the end of the film you see a close-up of the picture and you can see that the woman is posing with her kids in the foreground and Melquiades is off in the background. I think that Melquiades was a friend of her and/or her husband, perhaps an employee, and Melquiades was in love with her. This was the only photo he had of them together so he treasured it. I guess he concocted the fantasy that she was actually his wife and they were actually his kids because he loved her so much, and he kept that fantasy in his mind from that moment on.
Actually now that I think about it Melquiades was probably not a family friend of the woman because she doesn't seem to recognise him when Pete shows her the picture, nor react when he tells him that he was dead. He was probably just a shy local of the town who loved her and could never tell her (because she was married) and he just happened to get a picture of them in the same frame.
As for Jimenez... that's a little trickier. I guess he just really loved the area and so honestly would like to have been buried there. As for where he got the name Jimenez from since no-one seems to know it in the local towns .... I'm not sure. I think he never seriously considered that he would actually die or that Pete would actually go through with his promise. He and Pete were good friends and were hanging out together and he just said what was in his heart.
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I may be a tiny chimney-sweep but I've got an enormous brush.
hello everybody, you know what I think, Tommy lee didnt have a clue for himself and he just did it this way so all you people can make up stories in all the forums. I thinks he has a good laugh surfing the internet, joined by his bottle of whiskey.
Vincent van den Bijllaardt
Ach ja dat sommige mensen nou alles verklaard willen zien.. Zou er dan toch een kern van waarheid zitten in het stereotype hollywood fan?
Did you ever notice that people who believe in creationism look realy un-evolved? - Bill Hicks
Agree with the chimney sweep on this one. The woman would have reacted more if it had been her lover or former husband, especially if he was the real father of the children.
Melquiades was a dreamer,and very shy with women, as witnessed in the motel scene where the woman has to pull him into the room.
Just bury me once!
If you listen to the commentary, which is Tommy Lee Jones, Dwight Yoakum and for some reason January Jones, you will get a little perspective, but Tommy lee is very coy about giving everything away. he doesn't ramble on like most commentators do. But January Jones does come right out and ask Is there a Jimenez, and he says That's a good question. They talk a lot about the importance of Barry Pepper's character's reactions during the "jimenez" scene, and Tommy lee says This is a case of Believing is Seeing.
In the end, what I came away from it thinking is that Melquiades made the whole thing up. he got this picture, somehow, of a woman and her children that he just happens to be in the background of, he made up a wonderful life, and Tommy Lee finds something to believe in because he needs to.
He was smuggling drugs
sharei agree that this was likely the case as he was probably a loner with little social skills or confidence with women as the motel scene showes his shyness with women.
shareawesome explanation or theory, i was a little confused, but it doesnt really matter in the big picture of the movie, and i think tommy lee jones' character realizes that and i dont think it bothers him, which i think its not supposed to bother us either.. at first it bothered me, but when the movie was over i got the big picture and it didnt matter, just like it didnt matter to pete.
sharei don't know about this. i agree with the whole theory/explanation. But at the end where tommy get to "jimenez" and see's that it's just a bunch of stones. like the whole kidnapping bit he always threatened to kill barry's character, but he doesn't and even barry was like "huh, i thought you were going to shoot me". i think tommy's character realises that Melquiades lied to him, and his "friend" who he went to bury lied, and that shattered him inside.
shareI saw a look of recognition in the eyes of Melquiades' "wife", but she was afraid to admit she knew him because her husband was close by. She was just saying "leave me alone and cause me no problems please." She knew him, but couldn't admit it. My husband and I enjoyed the film. I am the type who likes to know what happens next but I guess we can guess that the bad guy, the border patrolman, goes back to the USA ,a changed man, and Pete finds a more tranquil life in Mexico.
shareThis is somewhat the same thing that I thought, the Jimenez part is pretty deep. And also, what was the third burial? Melquiades's past or the fact that he had been lying about his fake family?
shareThere is a discussion in this forum specifically about this issue. I thought it was pretty obvious that the three burials were:
1. Right after He was shot (Mike buries him and the coyotes find the shallow grave).
2. Engraved in the cemetary
3. Buried by Pete and Mike at "Jimenez".
Now I realize some people did not notice the first one.
[deleted]
I agree. The film revolves around the need for honour and redemption and yet, when you look, all the characters are flawed, be they cheats, fantasists, dreamers, bored, philanthropists or perhaps slightly mad. Surface impressions don't add up: for all his threats, Yoakam couldn't bring himself to shoot Jones. Pepper learns humility the hard way and Jones gets a glimpse that perhaps he didn't know his friend as well as he thought. He also discovers his lover isn't in love with him, nor will she marry him. Ultimately, it's about character and its flaws. Whether Mel thought Jiminez was beautiful, whether the place ever existed and whether Jones believed they'd found it is debatable. Perhaps he just gave up.
shareIndeed, I agree. The directions to Jiminez were vague to begin with and I think Pete (Jones) needed to put his friend to rest for himself more than for any other reason. Teaching the young fella humility was more of a side project, coincidence. He knew he was f*ucked once he kidnapped mike (Pepper) and it became time to call it an end. What happens next is up to the viewers imagination.
share[deleted]
I think what Arriaga was getting at, as he does in most of his other films, is that man will lie to be remembered. Melquiades did not have a family, nor did he have anyone who would remember him, except for Pete. He didn't think that Pete would go that far to fulfil his dying wishes. In doing so, Pete found the truth about Melquiades; that he simply wanted to be remembered as a caring person, a father, a husband, a friend, et cetera.
shareActually, there was a Jimenez & his wife & family. It was a time, place & the family that he held in his heart, in his dreams. He wanted this woman, whom, in the five years that he'd been gone, moved on with her life. Jimenez was the home he wanted to build & establish with the money he wanted to make in the United States. Watch the movie again & you'll see.
shareI wondered about the fact that in the beginning when Pete asked Mel the ages of his children - he always said "about" 15 or whatever. If they were his real children - he would have known their exact age.
shareI had read this same question on another thread and I did think about this. I have a large family of 7 kids and I have to admit, somebody asks me how old they are and I have to stop and think for awhile. Sometimes a long while. Sometimes I have to ask them how old they are because my mind has so blanked. And I'm with them daily. I haven't been away from them for a period of time.
Also somebody said that he didn't think he would go through with it. I'm not sure if he really thought it through, people in general don't want to think about their death and yeah, I don't think he really believed he would actually die. Though I have wondered about that picture and more so if the picture weren't his, how did he get it? And I'm sure she recognized him because she acted upset at the idea he was making waves in her life. Go away before my husband hears you type thing. Not to mention the girls snickering at the store. When you tell yourself lies long enough, you actually start to believe it, maybe he really believed that he had this family and he was from Jimenez (sp)? Or maybe Pete found the wrong place but refused to accept that he didn't find it. He held the picture sideways when he showed it to Mike. And Mike just patronized him by telling him that yes, that's it all right.
So why then tatiana503-1 did Mel have a photo of the woman he once dreamed of but moved on, did she send him the photo to prove she moved on?
the picture of the "family" (probably people Melquiades worked for, as he is in the background and not facing the camera)
MrMopar elsewhere on page 3 posted interesting thoughts and clues.
tatiana is spot on. This aspect of the other-worldly, dreamlike reality is a nice touch of magical realism.
shareThis aspect of the other-worldly, dreamlike reality is a nice touch of magical realism.
Ha! Never thought of that in connection with this movie ("magical realism), but yes it is a touch thereof, and this might be why I ended up liking the movie so much.
there's a highway that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder
Mel lied to his friend, in the misguided belief that Pete would think more of him if he was a man with a family, a homestead, and not the lonely, solitary cowboy that he was. Mel was a man of fantasy and imagination, so he invented a wife and children and told pete they all lived in what was probably a favorite place of his. Or perhaps pete simply found this place for him. He didnt want to seem like a lonely man, running away, adrift with nothing but himself. Who would? This is very human and understandable and i think a testament to the strength of Guillermo Arriaga's writing.
shareRead some Gabriel Garcia Marquez for some clues on the style that this film is written in, there is always a blending of fantsy and reality in his writing. It is an observation on how we view our lives and our interactions with others, there is no absolute objective truth to the events that shape who we are, and this movie is another example of that exploration.
shareI've got my own enquiries about the movie. Three burials, right? Where did the second burial of Mel take place?
shareThe second was the technical "first" burial. There's a brief shot of Norton and another Border Guard watching a backhoe dig up an area. Later, the two hunters find Mel's body. So, the first burial (technically the second) was when the sheriff buried him, the second was the border guards, and the third was in Jimenez.
sharei can't believe this movie got such good reviews when there were so many plot holes e.i. the relationship between pete and the sheriff and not even an attempt to explain jimenez or the photo.
make no mistake this wasn't a case of "the audience will draw their own conclusions" this was just lazyness on their part. There's no point trying to justify it, they tried to be all artsy fartsy so dumb-ass's will say how "intellectual" it was when in actual fact it was just an average movie with good acting and HUGE plot holes
"egg-head likes his booky wook"
"make no mistake this wasn't a case of "the audience will draw their own conclusions" this was just lazyness on their part."
You have no clue what writing is and how it works, and how long it takes.
Laziness? So what you think is that after having developped all that story, the writer said "Oh sod it, let's say there's no Jimenez, I'm tired of writing"... Yeah, great insight, fool.
- A point in every direction is the same as no point at all.
no i'm saying they took the easy way out and anyone with a brain could see that. its muppets like you that try to justify it and then cant come up with the answers so you just get fustrated. cry me a river.
and by the way when i say "laziness" its not in regard to writing its in regard to imagination,fool!
"egg-head likes his booky wook"
LOL. You should stick to movies that match your intellect -- G-Rated movies for the under-10 year olds. LOL.
shareI definitely agree with you. You'd think a guy who'd put together 21 grams could come up with some better characters & more consistant scenes to get to the point of the story. It was a slow beginning & looked like some director decided to get the locals together to read a script.
It was cool that they had Tommy Lee Jones in the picture. I wish we could have known the "wetback" more (some subtitles would have helped) But this was a terrible depiction of those who live in rural outback of Texas. Sure there is a lot of time on their hands for those folks, but I don't think that much *beep* goes on. Although, I did enjoy Dwight Y. performance.
But I have to admit I was hoping for better scene shots. And I think one theme most people miss in this movie is that factor of the acceptance most cowpokes have in the west of the "wetback". Of course, there is always a story of many of those who have died under mysterious circumstances on ranchs. Much better stories my father told me while I was growing up in Texas. Actually, he's why I watched the movie. Tommy Lee Jones likes his hat bands.
It's a style of writing. If it is too much work for you to stay involved, stick to what you like.
shareNO, the first burial occurs about 5 minutes into the film. Pepper's character is dragging the freshly-dead Mel into a hastily dug shallow grave in rocky soil. You dont see the face of the man burying Mel, but we later find out it is him.
That very short scene of Mel being laid to rest in the shallow grave is immediately after the scene where Mel first meets Pete.
That is the first burial. Mel is buried there for almost a week.
The second burial occurs immediately after we see Pepper's character shooting from behind a rock. This is about 24 minutes into the film.
The third burial is in "Jimenez".
Nobody seems to have brought it up yet - the 3 burials are not just actual, there are psychological ones too, where people dismiss Mel as a person. I started a list, and it grew longer than 3.
The first one is when Mel leaves home, and his "wife and kids" forget about him.
Another is perhaps how the hands, other than Pete, perceive Mel at first- a nobody.
When Mike kills Mel he hides the body, to him Mel is just another wetback he wishes were never there.
Then the sheriff buries Mel without telling Pete. The sheriff is denying Mel (and Pete) that much respect.
Mel's body comes home and nobody wants to be reminded of him.
The last is when Mike has his catharsis begging Mel for forgiveness. Mel's ghost is laid to rest in Mike's mind. (Maybe Pete's too.)
You can find this theme a lot of other places in the movie if you look. Burying and unburying.
I also noted how Mike is figuratively buried in the rattlesnake hole, and is drawn out again.
When I first watched this movie, I kept thinking of the scene in Marquez' 100 Years of Solitude, where two men' grave markers are put on the wrong grave.
Interesting point olson22 in comparing or regarding (un-)burial with denial and remembering, dismissal, forgetting and perception or lying and fantasy.
shareGood points, eolson22.
The rattlesnake cave also makes a good metaphor for Christ's body laid in the sepulcher and later resurrection, except three men find him, not three women.
[deleted]
ABSOLUTELY AGREE WITH YOU J-HIGGINSON.
sharethis is what I thought:
Maybe Melquiades was telling the truth and that the kids were his and the woman was his but not actually his wife. I was thinking maybe that is where they would meet to have their relations and the reason she was so scared about confirming that she knew him was that her husband would beat her and/or kill her. But then again melquiades might have just made it up cause it was something that he really wanted that could never happen. And did he really have 3 burials??? cause I got to say I only saw two. When he brought him in at the front of the movie I got the feeling that he had just found him out there in the same spot that the guy had left him....so yeah.
This film really annoyed me .. I'd seen the trailer 3 days prior, and was totally impressed with it, and got it on ebay yesterday, .. just finished watching it ... What a total let down.. bad acting, muddled storyline, bad plot.. just totally frustrating to watch! ..2 men and a rotting corpse, give me a break! .. I'd rather sit through Ella Enchanted again!
shareJbdub - you're an intellectual gnat who can’t even spell correctly, let alone mount a cogent argument regarding your perceptions of the film’s supposed inadequacies.
Depth to you no doubt relates to a woman’s cleavage. Presumably you wandered along to view this particular film because you thought it was going to be about good ol’ boys like yourself ‘peppering’ wetbacks with rifle fire whilst trying to cross the Rio Grande. May I suggest – when you can spare the time away from the bowling alley – that you confine your future viewing habits to films more in tune with your finer sensibilities – perhaps stellar works such as ‘Kazaam’, ‘Going overboard’ and ‘Leonard part 6’ might be more to your tastes? They’d certainly be less taxing for you (that means your head won’t hurt as much watching them).
Anyone who considers the storyline to have been ‘muddied’ and the acting to have been substandard does indeed need to concentrate their energies on films like ‘Elle enchanted’. If you need to be hand-held throughout a feature and have every single aspect of it spelt out for you than you were clearly mistaken in taking on the burden of watching this masterful film. If it’s pat answers you want, don’t take on films that are so clearly a stretch for your though processes. There’s certainly enough dross out there to suit your simpler and less exacting tastes.
I love people like you. The only gratification you get from life is attempting to tear people down on forums or in loser chat rooms. You’re the stereotypical nerd who believes he knows all and actually thinks that anyone on this planet gives a *beep* about what he thinks. And you've obviously never had sex because no one refers to them as "a woman’s cleavage"!
By the way tell your mom I said hi, I’m assuming you’re still leaving at home.
"egg-head likes his booky wook"
jbdud - are you really that illiterate? Talk about the dumbing down of society in general – you’re the flag bearer at the head of the brigade!
Firstly, this is a message board, or forum, not a chat room. I presume you frequent the latter out of desperation for the kind of human contact only the anonymity of a screen and keyboard can provide for your inadequate intellect.
Secondly, thanks for the heartfelt message to my mother - I'll pass it on once I can figure out what your cryptic 'leaving at home' phrase means. Everyone I've shown it to says you're just a plain dumb hick, but I figure there's got to be some sort of hidden meaning to it. After all, no one could really be THAT dumb, could they?
Thirdly, when you find the time to get your foot out of your mouth, Lothario, look up the definition for 'cleavage' in the dictionary. I obviously realize that the term is probably not one that would be bandied about overmuch in trailer park land, but even a male of average intelligence - and one with at least some experience – would know that it describes the valley, or hollow, between a woman's breasts, not the actual objects themselves. 'Them' indeed. Thanks for the laugh though, pal.
Lastly, how an intellectual giant such as yourself managed to venture from a forum devoted to ‘Teenage mutant Ninja turtles’ over to one on ‘The three burials of Melquiades Estrada’ will go down as one of the great mysteries of life. Were you trying to find your way to ‘The three amigos’ and got confused with how to type out the last word of the title on the keyboard? Quite likely, it would seem.
I'm flattered, you looked at my other messages! I'm assuming "jbdud" was a play on words, very witty indeed. And by the way the Three Amigo's is a great movie!!
But seriously, you showed my msg's to other people! Are you that self-conscious and unhinged that you care so much about what one random guy says to you on a message board that you need your "friends"(I’m thinking Star Wars toys) to read those msg's! At the start I thought you were just arrogant and deluded so it was easy to take the piss out of you but now I kind of feel sorry for you.
One last thing, my favourite comment since our arguments began has to be “it describes the valley, or hollow, between a woman's breasts, not the actual objects themselves.” Did you not feel even the littlest bit silly writing that? Is the “40 year old virgin” based on your life story? You can tell me, I promise I won’t tell anyone.
Love you loads,
Lothario
Mr Wilde- My God take your thesaurus out of your ass and put it with your pile of 'NME's and 'Sight and Sound's. The guy is entitled to his opinion. Does it upset you so much or do you take delight in thinking because you have an extended vocabulary you can inflict it on others to show your IQ. IQ isn't the be all and end all of life. Try to develop your EQ as it is obviously incredibly low.
By the way you use capital letters when writing movie titles. You can be as smarty pants as you want but if your basic skills are missing, well I guess you are clever enough to figure that one out.
My my, what a pair of intellectual heavyweights! I don't as a point of fact frequent these message boards that often, but what a laugh to come back after all this time to discover the additional epistles added in by such IMDB luminaries!
Poor Darth. Life must be such a puzzle to you. If you really feel I need to resort to a thesaurus to create my contributions then you do clearly suffer from some disturbing inadequacies. Presumably you had to pull out your intellectual heavy armor - a dictionary - to wade through my note? Or did you simply have someone read it out for you and explain the meaning behind every word containing upwards of two syllables?
Smoke on, Mighty mouse, and get an education over and above what you graduated with - three times - from 8th grade. Maybe you and the 'Dud' could swat together?
Best of luck to you in your future endeavours as a crash test dummy.
That is what happens Tom-1514 when you see the trailer of the movie you want to see and then see it, you will always get dissapointed.
shareFirst Burial was by Norton, then the sheriff, then by Norton again in Jimenez.
shareMaybe Melquiades was telling the truth and that the kids were his and the woman was his but not actually his wife. I was thinking maybe that is where they would meet to have their relations and the reason she was so scared about confirming that she knew him was that her husband would beat her and/or kill her.
I thought of that possibility too, but it wasn't just the "wife", the whole town didn't know him. And the wife would have been just as apprehensive if she was telling the truth about not knowing Melquiades, since even though she knew herself without guilt, maybe if the husband had heard about the Melquiades story he would still have been a bit suspicious of her.
...Besides, the Melquiades & family photo is actually two slightly different photos:
http://i862.photobucket.com/albums/ab188/jb0000/MelquiadesEstrada3.jpg
(the photo we see Melquiades show Pete, also the photo Pete shows to Mike in the end)
http://i862.photobucket.com/albums/ab188/jb0000/MelquiadesEstrada4.jpg
(the photo we see Pete show to Rosa)
Maybe this is just a mistake in the movie, but if it isn't, it seems to imply that the reality behind the photo was dubious (in the second photo, Melquiades is even more remote from the woman and the children). Or maybe the first photo (brighter, Melquiades can be seen more clearly) is supposed to be the same photo as the second, but seen through the idealistic eyes of Melquiades (the first time) and Pete (the second time, in the end), while the second photo is the actual photo, seen through the eyes of a woman who had nothing to do with the story?
there's a highway that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder
What a brain-twister, this... What did Pete see the first time, then? Was he under the spell? Are we under the spell?
Wait, it seems that my memory has played tricks on me - we don't see the photo Pete showed Rosa, the second screencap was a cropped image of the photo Pete showed Mike when they reached the ruined farm. And the third appearance of the photo was on the tree (when Mike was forced to beg forgiveness), and it was slightly different from the first one (Melquiades is slightly further back, you can see his whole right arm). So it could not have been a mistake of the movie, it was intended, but the person through whose eyes we saw the "coldest" appearance of the photo (with Mel furthest back) was Mike, not Rosa.
Somebody else further down this thread caught this, and also gave a very nice interpretation to the threefold appearance of the photo.
there's a highway that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder
Back to the question: Why was there no Jimenez and why the fake family picture?
Jones did this film in the tradition of Sam Peckinpah (the bleakness, the quotes from Peckinpah's films, the same cinematic style) -- and also Akira Kurosawa (for example, the surreal "Dreams" by Kurosawa) -- and in that context the blurred distinction between dreams and reality makes sense.
In the end, it's not important that Jimenez and the family were real -- they obviously were elements of Melquiades' dream of what he longed for (and people who have nothing need those dreams to keep themselves going). What *is* important is the theme of unconditional friendship, and Jones' willingness to respect his friend's dream... and in so doing, he took on that dream himself and became a willing participant in it.
You can see it in his face when Jones slowly realizes that there is no Jimenez, but he quickly chooses to abandon that reality and instead he chooses to *make Jimenez real*...for his friend Melquiades.
The tree with the picture of the "family" (probably people Melquiades worked for, as he is in the background and not facing the camera) was a sort of shrine that Jones made as a last gesture to his friend.
This is an act that both underscores Jones' refusal to give up his friend's dream, and at the same time it is the place where he forces Pepper to ask Melquiades for forgiveness -- which *gives* Pepper the redemption that he so sorely needs as a human being.
Thus "Jimenez" becomes both the place of Melquiades' realization of his dream, as well as the place of Pepper's realization of his humanity. Jones (and the strength of friendship) is the vehicle by which this realization is finally made.
Yes, luminal velocity!!!
I've just happened to watch the movie for the first time last night, then - tormented too by the same questions - gone through the labor of reading this entire column. I find your interpretation to be the closest to the spirit and message of the movie. Thanks.
I agree mello-yello, luminal velocity made a good point.
I would want to try to point out, that IMO also with Peppers plea for forgiveness, Tommy Lee Jones' feelings of friendship are recognised or rewarded and the unrespectful killing and burying of Mel in Pepperland is corrected, not forgiven but the harm that was done to Mel is softened and humanity restored.
(Oh hell my english language skills are weak, but that is why I go on these boards to learn and the need to participate sorry)
Finnally someone got it! The movie is about a man´s loyalty to another. No questions asked. Mel was his friend. That´s enough. He would fulfill his promise no matter what. Great, beutiful movie.
shareI pretty much agree with what you say, just wanted to add this: sometimes, we project dreams upon places. I know that I do. And then, when I pass by those places, I remember my dreams as if they were memories of real things that happened there. And when I think of my dreams, I see the real place around them and that makes them more real to me. Maybe this is what happened to Melquiades as well - maybe he knew that little place in ruins between the two cities, and he dreamed an actual, functioning farm there, where he'd have lived a few happy years next to a woman he fancied and her children, who'd be his children. And then, to him, that dream started to work like a memory, even with a clear geographical location. Hell, maybe he couldn't tell himself for sure whether it was a dream or not.
So Pete could not bury Melquiades in Jimenez, but he still did the right thing, by burying him in the Place that linked the real world to the dream of his friend, and also by treating that dream with the utmost respect - treating it as reality.
there's a highway that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder