The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

We rented a movie called “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada”. It’s about a Mexican immigrant living in the US illegally, who is killed in an accident. His coworker, played by Tommy Lee Jones, had promised to take his body home to his family in Mexico if anything ever happened to him. So it is essentially a road movie. But it starts in Texas, in a small town.

One of the characters works in a restaurant, so a number of the scenes are shot there. One of the establishing shots is of a few empty tables at the front of the restaurant. There is a Lion’s Club banner in the background and a window on the far wall.

When I saw that shot I had a bit of déjà vu. When Luis, Pati and I had been driving back to Mexico after our visit to Portland, we stopped to eat at a small restaurant in Van Horn, Texas where I took this picture:



It is the same restaurant, and essentially the same shot they used in the film. Crazy what this world serves up to us.