Paris, Texas (1984)

 

Paris, Texas

“Paris, Texas” is very much a Wim Wenders movie. A few months ago, I watched his excellent “Perfect Days” in the cinema and although I do not think “Paris, Texas” hits the same perfection, they do have a lot in common, traits that are typical for Wenders.

There is a man staggering through a desert. He looks exhausted and very thirsty. When he arrives at a store, he starts to eat ice and then collapses. A local doctor examines him, concludes he is mute and uses his wallet to contact his next of kin, his brother. When Walt Henderson (Dean Stockwell) arrives, we learn that the bewildered man is called Travis and that he has been gone and lost for four years. Only very, very slowly does he start to speak and recognize what is happening around him.

Walt takes Travis home to California where he lives with his wife Anne (Aurore Clément) and Travis’ 8-year-old son, Hunter (Hunter Carson). Hunter has practically been adopted by Anne and Walt after he showed up four years earlier, telling them that his parents had disappeared. Hunter at first wants nothing to do with Travis, but eventually they get close and when Travis sets out to find his lost wife, Hunter insists on coming along.

This is a movie that movies very slowly, not just in its pacing but also in the way it opens up its story. For the first half hour I am confused, then slightly bored, but ever so slowly meaning creeps in and confusion is replaced by understanding. Not through a big reveal, but simply by pieces sliding into place.

Travis is an enigma. Why is he walking around in the desert of Texas and why has he spent four years doing that? Where is Hunter’s mother and why is she where we finally find her? And what is the point of the title: Paris, Texas? It seems to refer to a place we only see in a worn-out photo.

For me, the biggest question was and still is, why this German film is taking place in Texas?

If you are going to watch this movie, you should stop reading right here, because getting the answer to the former set of the questions is one of the great satisfactions of watching this movie.

When Travis finally finds his wife, Jane (Natassja Kinski), working in a peep show in Houston, he tells her a story about a boy and girl who were in love. Obviously, a story about Travis and Jane. In this story we learn that their relationship developed horribly into an abusive and dysfunctional relationship where they both loved each other and wished to be far away from the other person. The relationship apparently ended by both of them taking off on their own, seemingly to find that empty place where nothing existed. No love, no pain, nothing. Travis found his empty spot in Paris, Texas and Jane found it pretending to be someone else in a peep show. Both are longing for reconciliation, especially for their son, but Travis knows that being together is impossible, so his reconciliation must be to at least bring Jane and Hunter together.

This is a movie about broken people and how there is no big solutions but only small solution or no solutions. How realizing and coming to terms with the fact that you are yourself the problem and then facing the courage to at least begin to fix that, is a monumental task. Like in “Perfect Days” people are not as simple as we think they are, but have landed where they are because of a traumatic past. Simplifying life is a remedy to reduce pain, but in itself it does not really solve anything.

“Paris, Texas” is a slow, but rewarding movie to watch. As we get closer to Travis and Jane, it becomes painful, but that is because there is something at stake and the ending is a heartbreak.

I really want to watch some more Wim Wenders, so it is good he has made a lot of movies. There are also more of his coming up on the List. This one is a good one if you like his style.

I still have to work out, though, why this had to take place in America.