Looking to the other side: Dismantlement and reimposition of borders in Sicario and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Introduction

Recent political events, such as the “Title 42” expulsions, have led to growing prominence in United States-Mexico border discourses. The Trump Administration used the law during the COVID-19 pandemic to remove migrants from the Mexican border, resulting in family separations and the denial of protection to asylum seekers. More recently, the Biden Administration implemented a policy in May 2023 that prohibited people from gaining asylum in the United States (US) if they had not already applied for asylum in a country they had travelled through in their journey to the border. In line with this, media and political rhetoric frequently present the idea of a permeable border as a threat to the US. 

Two films that engage in ideas of the permeability of the US-Mexico border are Sicario (Denis Villeneuve, 2015) and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Tommy Lee Jones, 2005). This article will explore how these films either reimpose or dismantle the border. To construct these arguments, an analysis of cinematic techniques will be undertaken for each film, with a focus on mise-en-scène. It will be argued that the negative depiction of Mexico in Sicario reimposes border ideology. Subsequently, the article will assert that The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada instead dismantles the border division. In both texts, however, there are challenges and nuances to these arguments, as will be explored. These include border permeability in instances that are beneficial to the hegemony of the US in Sicario, and some aspects of Mexico’s romanticised portrayal that reinforce a divide in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. 

In my discussion of both films, three perspectives will be employed as a paradigm to consider the way the border is represented. These include superterranean (aerial), terranean, and subterranean perspectives. Whilst this article is not a comparative study, it will allude to similarities and differences between border dismantling or construction where relevant. Furthermore, even though the primary focus is that of border deconstruction and reimposition, ideas around race and cultural representation will be discussed where relevant, since the US-Mexico border is implicated over these debates. However, arguments will be drawn back to the implications for border construction or dismantlement. 

The notions of “dismantling” and “reimposing” the border are abstract. To gain better understanding of these terms, a clear definition of the “border” is needed. My discussion of borders will not be limited to the physical border wall that demarcates the two countries in the films. Instead, the “border” will encompass any ideas of a divide, including physical, cultural, linguistic and economic. “Dismantling” the border refers to aspects of the films that deconstruct and negate these forms of division between the countries. Similarly, “reimposing” does not exclusively refer to the physical reinforcement of borders, such as with law enforcement or wall construction. It encompasses any aspects of the narratives that reinforce a divide, whether cultural or physical, between the countries. 

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Sicario portrays the border as an area of danger and conflict between law enforcement and criminals. A stark contrast is created between the US and Mexico, or what Marcel Brousseau describes as “oscillating distinctions” between the border as being “evil-good, criminal-police.”¹ The cross-border raid scene alludes to this binary, with a bird’s eye shot showing the queue of American armoured vehicles passing the checkpoint (figure 1). The many cars queueing to enter the US in the upper centre of the frame evoke ideas of an “escape” from Mexico. Contrastingly, the only vehicles entering Mexico are the ominous police trucks. This depicts Mexico negatively by conflating it with criminality, especially through the implication that the only people entering Mexico are members of law enforcement. Furthermore, it is implied to be more difficult for Mexicans to enter America than Americans to enter Mexico, given the long queue on the Mexican side of the border. This highlights the one-sided permeability of the border, and signifies the difficulties migrants face when trying to enter America.

Figure 1. The American police convoy enters Mexico. (Sicario)

This aerial shot, as part of my “superterranean” perspective, supports the notion that Sicario reimposes borders. Not only do we see a physical border, but an implied safe-violent divide is created, and this stark contrast reinforces border thinking. With the surveillance-style zoom and diegetic sound of rotor blades, this shot is implied to be taken from an American police helicopter. As a result, the audience’s gaze is through the lens of the American “side” of the conflict, rather than a more neutral camera angle that lacks the helicopter diegetic sound, so is not implied to be from one “side”. This serves to reinforce border ideology, as we are cinematically encouraged to affiliate with one side by viewing from the US perspective. 

Both sets of cars can pass through each side of the border checkpoint, showing a level of permeability. The fact that American police can enter the border with ease for law enforcement activities implies that the border is permeable in instances that are beneficial to the US, and is more rigid in ways that may benefit migrants from Mexico (hence the longer queues to enter the US). Whilst the checkpoint signifies a physical level of permeability, with cars able to pass through, the safe-unsafe divide created by this scene reinforces a cultural border by starkly contrasting the countries. 

In addition to the bird’s-eye shot in figure 1, we also see aerial shots of the desert landscape. Unlike figure 1, these shots do not show a border division. Instead, we see a continuous uninhabited landscape, making it ambiguous as to which geographic side of the boundary is in view. This ambiguity dismantles border ideology, as it unifies the countries by creating a sense of undifferentiated, geographic regularity, rather than a border divide. 

In considering a terranean perspective, many of the shots taken at ground level reinforce borders, particularly by “othering” Mexico. Shortly before the first raid team enters Mexico, a point-of-view shot, taken from within a police vehicle, shows Juárez through the border fence. Steve, the driver, says, “There she is. The beast, Juárez.” The fence bars are evocative of a prison wall, contributing to the portrayal of Juárez as an area of entrapment and danger. This, along with the metaphor of Juárez being a “beast”, portrays the city as being like a caged animal, characterising it as being savage and bestial. This shot reinforces borders by creating a stark contrast between the implied the safe-unsafe binary between each side of the border. Carlos Gallego argues that Steve’s description of Juárez is “hyperbolic and ideological, aimed at reinforcing the fantasies of exceptionalism.”² Drawing on this, it is these “fantasies of exceptionalism” that reinforce border ideology, as it allows the US to view itself in higher regard than Mexico. 

In this scene, Steve alludes to the first American presidential visit to Mexico in 1909: “Taft brought four thousand troops with him. Do you think he felt safe?” Gallego discusses the accuracy of this account: “American financial interests in Mexico at the time were around $1,057,770,000… The 4,000 troops were present as a display of force and/or a threat to those who would harm American interests more so than they were to actually protect the President.”³ Steve’s subsequent hyperbolic account, therefore, serves to further the audience’s conflation of Mexico with violence. 

This “othering” of Mexico as an inherently violent and unsafe place for Americans is implied during the mission briefing. At the police station, a US marshal says, “Anyone not in this room is a potential shooter.” This statement reverberates the association between the Mexico setting and violence. By describing any Mexican encountered along the way as a “potential shooter”, this dialogue reverberates the problematic association between Mexico and violence. This reimposes borders by furthering the stark cultural divide between the countries. 

Much of the raid is filmed from within the American vehicles. As the camera trucks past the hanging bodies, Alejandro says, “Welcome to Juárez.” We then see children playing basketball a short distance down the street from the bodies. This, along with Alejandro’s remark, implies that gruesome murders are a normality in Mexico. Once again, this inaccurate, disparaging portrayal of Mexico reinforces border ideology by conflating Mexico with violence. The director’s decision to shoot this scene from within the American vehicle not only shows which “side” of the oppositional forces we are to align with, but implies that Mexico is so dangerous that the viewer’s gaze must be from within the vehicle. The fact that we see these shots from what is implied to be the relative safety of the vehicle reinforces this safe-unsafe divide, thus furthering border thinking. Furthermore, we rarely see from the perspective of Mexicans themselves who inhabit this area, which further shows that much of the film is to be viewed from the American “side”. 

Having explored Sicario from superterranean and terranean perspectives, the tunnel scene offers a subterranean angle. A point-of-view shot shows Kate’s perspective as she enters the tunnel, which runs under the border to connect both sides. Thus, audience are temporarily blinded, with a nearly pitch-black frame only featuring diegetic sound of echoes and panicked breathing. This, along with the extra-diegetic foreboding string music, creates tension, as audiences are uncertain as to lies in the darkness. The fast-paced tempo of the string music resembles that of a racing human heart, conveying Kate’s fear at the assumed threat of criminals waiting ahead. Our pitch-black gaze is illuminated by a sudden view through the lenses of military night-vision goggles. This not only increases the audience’s alignment with the American side, but alludes to the financial hegemony of American military and police. Contextually, the US has long since equipped itself with advanced, state-of-the-art technology during operations. 

The motif of a tunnel represents a more permeable border, with both territories directly connected. As a result, this scene can be viewed as contributing to the dismantling of borders. Whether this is something to be celebrated, however, is questionable, as the tunnel is used unethically by forces on both sides. Whilst the cartels use it for drug smuggling and transporting illegal immigrants, the American law enforcement team use it for their raid, an operation that is not just physically “underground”, but metaphorically, with the mission’s aim being for Alejandro to illegally assassinate cartel leader, Alarcón. In this way, the “dismantling” of borders in the tunnel scene is not a positive, desirable border deconstruction, as the tunnel legitimises and facilitates illegal movements for both sides. This shows the hesitance that should be taken when viewing border deconstruction to be intrinsically beneficial. 

Despite the film’s continual efforts to align audiences with the American side, such as with our view through Kate’s night vision goggles, it offers some resistance to an exceptionalist view of America. Kate’s resentment of the team’s unethical practices means that our point-of-view shots are from the perspective of an American agent who questions and opposes the ethics of the operation. Similarly, before his assassination, Alarcón says, “Who do you think we learned it from?” in reference to cartel violence. There is an implication that he is referring to America, perhaps as a critique of American violence and hegemony. Despite these examples, the anti-American material in the film is limited and contained. 

The final shot of Sicario shows Mexican children playing football (figure 2). The diegetic sound of distant gunfire causes the parents and children to momentarily stop and look into the distance, before the game resumes as normal. Their relatively unbothered response implies that gunfire is a regular, normal occurrence on the Mexican side, once again negatively associating it with violence. Along with the imposing wall in the right of the frame, this reimposes border ideology by underpinning the implied unsafe-safe divide. 

Figure 2. The sound of gunfire at the border. (Sicario)

Kojo Koram points out that Juárez’s crime and poverty is largely due to “neoliberal trade agreements.”⁴ He discusses an “erasure of the economic border” between the US and Mexico, where the US has outsourced much of its manufacturing industry to manufacturing plants, or maquiladoras.⁵ The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 2004 endowed American capital with greater freedom of movement. The subsequent outsourcing of industrial production to Mexico took advantage of the cheaper labour from a less unionised workforce. Juárez’s position on the border subjects it to the “gravitational pull” of the US economy, with many Mexicans travelling to the city for temporary work.⁶ The lack of job security and regularity has led to a sharp decline in income levels, and a subsequent expansion in disparities of wealth. As a result, increases in poverty have worsened the crime rate, and the outsourcing of pollution to the Mexican side of the border has caused significant environmental destruction in Mexico. This example shows a partial breakdown a of the border in a way that is financially beneficial to America (with cheaper production costs), however this has arguably done more harm than good to the Mexican side. Sicario makes no allusion to this factor, instead “blaming” Mexico entirely for the crime and poverty without enquiring further into reasons for it. 

In considering the significance of globalisation in Sicario, Arjun Appadurai’s model of the five “-scapes” is useful. Each component of the model, or “-scape”, highlights a particular movement that contributes to the interconnectedness of societies. Among these is the “ethnoscape.” This refers to the global flow of people who move across borders; “tourists, immigrants, refugees, exiles, guestworkers and other moving groups.”⁷ Sicario not only maps a varied ethnoscape in terms of its plot (with characters from a range of countries in both North and South America), but the ethnoscape of the film’s own production team is complex. The film’s crew included a French-Canadian director, an Icelandic composer, a British cinematographer, a British film star (Emily Blunt), and a star from Puerto Rico (Benicio del Toro). 

In contrast to the regressive depiction of Mexico in Sicario, Tommy Lee Jones’ The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (hereafter referred to as “The Three Burials”) offers a more positive portrayal. As with Sicario, bird’s-eye shots are used to show the border landscape. However, these are not implied to be from an American police helicopter. In a similar way to Sicario as discussed previously, these shots do not indicate which side of the border landscape we are seeing. These aspects of the film dismantle border thinking by not affiliating with a particular “side,” and instead creating a sense of unmarked, geographic continuity between the territories. 

The terranean perspective of Mexico in The Three Burials is far more celebratory than in Sicario. For instance, we see herbal remedies for snake bites, Mexican “cowboys” in the desert, and hear Mexican traditional folk music. Rather than depicting towns as impoverished and crime-ridden areas (such as the Juárez crime scene in Sicario), The Three Burials uses many wide-angle shots to display the grandeur and beauty of the Mexican landscape. Whilst these methods of representing Mexico seem positive, they conversely represent Mexican culture in romanticised, even primitive terms. This evokes American historian George Fredrickson’s notion of “romantic racialism.”⁸ Now a fairly dated term, this refers to members of one racial community celebrating and romanticising the culture of another in ways that are intended to be celebratory and affirmative, but inadvertently engage in stereotyping. An example of this is seen with the use of primitive technology or horseback travel in Mexico. The scene where Mariana heals Mike’s snake bite with a traditional herbal remedy engages in an inaccurate stereotype of Mexican traditional medicine, reducing it to a cliché, fairytale-like narrative device. As a result, these seemingly positive aspects of the film’s depiction of Mexico should be assessed ambivalently. Mexico’s depiction as pre-modern is intended in a positive way; to act in an oppositional rhythm to the hyper-modernity of the US. However, it risks presenting Mexico in primitive, backward terms. Similarly, Melquiades’ request to not be buried on the American side of the border, the side “with all the fucking billboards” further contributes to this primitive depiction of Mexico. Whilst Melquiades’s comment is intended to be critical of the mundane, consumer culture landscape of America, it also implies that there are no billboards in Mexico – an exaggeration that implies it to be pre-modern.  

In spite of this, it is important to consider the ethnoscape of the film’s production team. The script was written by Mexican writer Guillermo Arriaga, who is to some extent a co-author of the film. In light of this, the depiction of Mexico in romantic, picturesque terms may alternatively convey more positive attitudes towards the country. The fact that a Mexican would stress such differences between the countries implies a desire to celebrate the culture of Mexico as being distinct from its neighbour, offering a folklorizing vision of his own country that should be acknowledged with artistic grandeur. 

It is important to consider that the Tommy Lee Jones’ intentions are to be celebratory, rather than disparaging, of Mexico. Aitor Ibarrola Armendáriz points out that Lee Jones is “born and raised on the Texan-Mexican border”, and is familiar with “a shared history and socio-cultural blending” between the US and Mexico.⁹ Although his star persona appears as a standard archetype of American cinematic masculinity, identified with the classic American West, Lee Jones reflects a more plural background, as he has Cherokee ancestry. As a result, he problematises the more traditional hegemonic, white and Anglicised version of the American West. 

Music contributes significantly to the way the Mexican side of the border is portrayed in both films. Traditional Mexican folk music underscores much of the soundtrack in The Three Burials, portraying Mexico as having an aesthetic, culturally rich quality. By contrast, the dramatic string soundtrack of Sicario, a staple component of many similar action films, reduces Mexico to dangerous place of dramatic violence. Whilst the romanticisation of Mexico in The Three Burials has been discussed as being potentially problematic, the use of traditional Mexican music is celebratory. 

The landscape of Mexico in The Three Burials is also portrayed more positively in juxtaposition with the poor and crime-ridden Mexican cityscape in Sicario. Melquiades describes Jiménez, his home town, as “a beautiful place”. We are told: “The air is so clear, you feel like you can hug the mountains with your arms. A stream of clear clean freshwater bubbles out from the rocks.” This vividly idyllic, almost utopian description is accompanied with many wide-angle shots of the Mexican landscape. 

Throughout The Three Burials, we never see a physical border, which contrasts starkly to Sicario’s frequent display of the wall or checkpoint. As with the superterranean perspective of a continuous landscape discussed earlier, both the characters and the audience are unaware which side of the territory they are on during Mike’s “reverse-migration” across the desert. This continuous desert landscape dismantles borders to some extent by evoking a sense of continued space that lacks a territorial demarcation. Similarly, the television show Mike watches in Mexico is the same show that Mike watched with his wife in the beginning of the film. The fact that the same show is being played in both countries can be seen as a dismantling of borders to some extent, as it creates a sense of shared media and universality in what people watch, rather than a cultural divide. 

On the reverse of this, the fact that an American television show is broadcast in another country indicates an American hegemony of media. This calls to mind Arjun Appadurai’s notion of the “mediascape”, another of his five dimensions of globalisation. Appadurai describes mediascapes as “image-centred, narrative-based accounts of strips of reality, and what they offer to those who experience and transform them is a series of elements (such as characters, plots and textual forms).”¹⁰ In this example, America’s dominance of the mediascape reflects the border to only partially be deconstructed, as it is permeable for an outward spread of America’s media and film. The lack of Mexican influence in American television within the film, however, indicates that this permeability is one-way. 

Border construction and deconstruction is also affected by language. The Three Burials uses both Spanish and English throughout, with the title being displayed in both languages during the opening credits (figure 3). Whilst America has no official language, English is widely viewed as the standard. The frequent use of both languages on each side of the border (such as Mike and Pete speaking English on the Mexican side, or Pete speaking Spanish on the American side) adds a sense of bilingualism to the film, which in turn negates a dialogic divide between the countries. The frequent use of Spanish, therefore, can be read as contributing to the deconstruction of border division within the film by challenging the Anglo-centric tradition of Hollywood. 

Figure 3. The bilingual opening credits in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada foregrounds the motif of cultural unification.

In contrast, Spanish is rarely spoken in Sicario. During the interrogation of cartel member Guillermo, Matt mimics Guillermo’s answer of “No hablo inglés” (“I do not speak English”), and mockingly repeats the phrase. The limited amount of Spanish in Sicario, a mainstream Anglicised film, reinforces border thinking by highlighting cultural difference between characters on each side of the border, themselves often unable to communicate with those on the other side. 

The different use of language in The Three Burials draws to mind Maria Lauret’s studies on “language migration”, a term which refers to the use of non-English language within English literature texts. Lauret develops the notion of “wanderwords”, which are “words in other languages that disrupt the taken-for-granted English of American literature and can thereby perform… cultural critique.”¹¹ She argues that wanderwords make texts “more transnational” and “less inclined to submit to their “host” language’s hegemony.”¹² Drawing on this, the use of both languages within each side of the border in The Three Burials is an example of language migration, and that this dismantles border ideology by making the film “more transnational” and less likely to submit to the hegemony of mainstream, unilingual English films. Whilst Lauret’s research more conventionally lends itself to novels and written literature, it is still valuable in considering a bilingual film such as The Three Burials. Drawing on Lauret’s argument, “language migration” can lead to a collapse of nationalistic thinking by presenting a more culturally diverse dialogue. This occurs in The Three Burials, which dismantles borders by reducing a sense of linguistic and dialogic division between the countries. 

The Three Burials depicts the American side of the border in a more humble way than Sicario. Instead of seeing modern, affluent urban landscapes, we see run-down trailer parks and a shopping mall. These settings evoke Marc Augé’s notion of the “non-place”, which refers to areas that have no cultural or historic relevance, or “spaces of circulation, consumption and commodification.”¹³ In comparison, Sicario similarly depicts America as being a modernised place, however also portrays it as being affluent and distinct. We see the prosperous American urban landscape of El Paso, which contrast starkly to the run-down streets of Juárez. Whilst the less affluent depiction of America in The Three Burials may partially lend itself to the film’s release some ten years prior to Sicario, it also reflects the film’s reluctance to depict America at the forefront of the “modern-primitive” binary that Sicario exhibits. 

The American police in Sicario are also portrayed to be advanced and competent, especially through the use of state-of-the-art technology, such as night-vision goggles and drones. Contrastingly, American law enforcement in The Three Burials is portrayed as being incompetent, such as with the patrol car’s puncture during the search for Pete, or Captain Gomez’s incompetent admittance about their heat-seeking radars: “It don’t work.” This negative, comedic portrayal of American police somewhat dismantles border thinking by reducing this “modern-primitive” divide between the countries implied in Sicario.  

The economic permeability of the US-Mexico border was discussed in relation to Sicario; specifically, the outsourcing of manufacturing plants to the Mexican side of the border to exploit cheaper labour. This economic permeability is implied in The Three Burials, but in the reverse direction. After failing to capture a group of illegal immigrants, Gomez remarks, “Well, somebody’s gotta pick strawberries.” This comment sheds a light on the reverse permeability of the border in instances that are financially beneficial to the US. In this case, Gomez’s comment refers to the use of cheap labour for menial farm jobs. As with the outsourcing of manufacturing plants to Mexico previously discussed, there are moral ambiguities around such actions, as they exploit the cheap labour of migrants, but simultaneously reward them with higher wages than they may get on the Mexican side. 

In considering a “subterranean” perspective, whilst there is no underground travel in The Three Burials, we can consider the significance of the various holes dug for each of Melquiades’ burials. The first two are dug on the American side, before Pete kidnaps Mike and has him transport the body to the Mexican side, where the body is finally buried. The fact that Pete goes to such lengths means that great importance is attached to which side of the border Melquiades is buried (figure 4). This shows a reinforcement of border thinking, as it gives significance to the territorial division. 

Figure 4. Pete arrives in a Mexican town. (The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada)

Conclusion

This essay has aimed to explore the contrasting ways border ideology is either reimposed or dismantled in two US-Mexico border films. As discussed, the US-Mexico border is shown to be partially-permeable in different contexts and to different types of people. Both films contain multiple border breakdowns and reinforcements, and these are largely determined by who crosses the border, and their reasons for doing so. 

Sicario maintains a prevailing ideology of border reinforcement, facilitated by the stark safe-unsafe contrast the film uses to depict the US and Mexico respectively. By contrast, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada generally presents borders through a more deconstructive lens, and offers a more hopeful and celebratory depiction of both Mexican people and culture. 

It is important to consider that the perspective from which borders are portrayed in films can significantly influence the audience’s perception. The Three Burials tends to offer a dual perspective on the border, allowing the audience to empathise with characters from both sides. This fosters a more nuanced understanding of border complexities, and challenges simplistic views of the border by encouraging the audience to reflect on shared humanities. By contrast, Sicario conflates the border with lawlessness and danger. In doing so, it draws on Americentric cultural anxieties around crime beyond the Mexican side of the border, thus offering a more divisive view. 

In a contemporary era of globalisation, the border may seem an obsolete and outdated construct. These films, however, demonstrate that it is as important as ever. John Harrison et al. argue that nowadays we have “more permeable” and “fluid” concepts of borders between regions than previously.¹⁴ The fact that Sicario was created ten years after The Three Burials, yet offers a more reconstructive view of the border, suggests that a regression may have occurred in terms of cultural divide. In a contemporary climate where political border rhetoric problematically presents the idea of a permeable border and migration as threatening, it may be some time before border ideology is dismantled again.

Endnotes