The bile that Hollywood has managed to produce in the last few years has been so atrocious, so utterly insulting that I’d all but given up on the industry. So last night I was highly skeptical about watching an American film on the DIFF circuit, called The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada, directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones.

Things did not start well at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, for when the screen lit up it was accompanied by a loud buzzing noise and droning hum that had people covering their ears in horror. A simple loose connection on the audio circuit would be the cause of this, and I thought to myself: “There’s no use in complaining. They can obviously hear it, and are probably attending to the problem right now."?

Unfortunately this was not the case, and throughout the movie the crowd suffered this appalling screech from the speakers; accompanied by the occasional jumping and crackling of the film reel (that’s the best way I can describe what was happening to the image on screen). Thankfully the jumpy image was just a mild annoyance, especially compared to the audio issue.

Lesson learned: Do not go to the Sneddon if you want to see DIFF movies.

However, somewhere beneath the piercing buzzing there was a whole lot of excellent soundtrack and dialog being broadcast.

The movie is a Western, set on the border of Texas and Mexico, and revolves around the death of a Mexican, Melquiades Estrada, who’s American friend, played by Tommy Lee Jones, sets out to honour a promise that he made to bury him in his Mexican home. It plot is slightly more complicated than that, and Tommy is more or less a fugitive on the run from the border patrol. I won’t ruin it with a spoiler, but just know there is a much more depth in the story than that which is revealed from the basic outline.

The dialog was quite minimal, as is fitting to the genre, and left much of the storytelling to the imagery, cinematography and actions of the characters. A lot of critical parts in the story were spoken entirely in Spanish with no subtitles. I found this to be quite refreshing on some level (if you assume they did it on purpose), as you are left guessing and interpreting the character’s motives for what they get up to. It’s nice to not be spoon-fed a story for a change.

There were a lot of stunningly raw scenes, showing everything from rotting corpses to a nude shot with a woman in her 40s. I loved the fact that the movie got down to the bare truth of the human condition; an American film in which the actors were not all A-list stars of Hollywood boulevard.

From tear-jerking moments, to the fantastic plot development which has you constantly re-evaluating your opinion of the characters, to the amazing ending; this is a slow moving artwork that is as deep as it is subtle.

My confidence in movies is restored. Bring on more DIFF!