We’re hitting another big Wim Wenders film today. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this film going in, mostly in the sense of what kind of story it would be. However, I’m pleased to say that it took me on a very emotional journey, and a very Wenders one at that. While it might not be entirely original, the way it executes everything is powerful and unique. I’ll summarize the story, and then try to put these feelings into words the best I can.
The movie starts off with a disheveled man wandering around a Texas desert, dazed and dehydrated. He happens upon a convenience store, so he heads inside and starts eating ice out of the freezer before passing out. A local doctor examines him in his office and discovers that the man is mute, or at least is unwilling to speak. Trying to figure out who he is, the doctor looks through his stuff and finds a card with a phone number on it. The number leads to a man named Walt Henderson, and it turns out that the wandering man is his brother Travis, who had disappeared four years ago and hadn’t been heard from since. Walt tells his wife, Anne, about the situation and says that he’s going down there to get Travis. Anne is concerned, especially concerning someone named “Hunter,” but Walt assures her that things will be alright. When Walt arrives, the doctor won’t turn him over until Walt pays a little extra, but it turns out that Travis had wandered off from the doctor’s office a while ago anyway. Walt goes looking for him and finds him walking along the railroad tracks. He manages to get Travis into the car and Walt talks to Travis in a one-sided conversation, since Travis still isn’t speaking to anyone. Walt explains that they all thought he was dead and that he and Anne had taken in Hunter, Travis’s son, in lieu of neither Travis, nor Hunter’s mother Jane, being around to take care of him (Jane, of course, was Travis’s wife, but no one knows where’s she’s disappeared to either.) At first, Travis still tries to get away from Walt, even leaving the motel room they rent while Walt is out shopping, but upon learning about his son, he starts to open up a little more, and even starts talking again. He shows Walt a picture of a plot of barren land in Paris, Texas that he had purchased, which is apparently the very spot that his parents conceived him on (they used to joke that Travis was made in Paris….Paris, Texas, that is). It appears Travis has a spiritual connection to this spot, as he feels that it’s where he came from. He wants to go see it, but Walt doesn’t want to take the extra time to take a several mile detour when he was only supposed to be away a few days. They end up agreeing to go to Los Angeles, where Walt lives, though it takes a little longer than expected, because Travis freaks out on the plane, and they have to go by road. When they finally arrive, it’s clear that there’s a lot of distance between Travis and Hunter, understandably so. Hunter doesn’t really seem to get why Travis is here now of all times, and Travis doesn’t really know how to connect to his son. However, when they both watch old home movies of the five of them all together, they start to open up to each other and rekindle the lost parent-child relationship they once had. Things go rather well from there for a while, but one night, Anne drops a big bombshell on Travis: Jane has been wiring money for Hunter for several years now. She’s apparently been living in Houston and, every month, deposits an amount of money in a bank account for Anne to use for Hunter’s sake. Anne’s never told anyone this, not even Walt, but she feels like Travis should know (though there might be some motivation to get him to go see her and leave Hunter for a while, since Anne views Hunter as her son too and feels like she’s losing Hunter to Travis now). Travis decides to go and find Jane and tells Hunter that he’s going to Houston for a while. However, Hunter wants to come along, which Travis is resistant to at first, since he would technically need Walt and Anne’s permission to do so. Ultimately, he decides to take him along, and he has Hunter call back home once they’re already a good way away, just so they can know that he’s safe with Travis. Thus begins the second part of the film, in which Travis and Hunter set about finding their long-estranged wife/mother, but I’ll end the recap here, as I think you should see the rest for yourself. Now, let’s discuss my thoughts.
Having watched several of Wim Wenders’s films now, I’ve noticed that a recurring element is a heavy yet almost ethereal feeling that permeates the stories. It’s not easy to describe this vibe, as it seems to be used for different purposes in each movie: in The American Friend, it’s used to enhance the overwhelming turmoil of Jonathan’s situation; in Wings of Desire, it’s used to bolster the spiritual and existential journey of Damiel and several other characters in the film; and in Until the End of the World, it’s used to heighten its grand scale and “world fusion” concept. With Paris, Texas, however, this feeling is used to strengthen the human emotion of a situation that is ruined and might not ever be fixed. Travis, by his own hand, drove the woman he loved most away from him forever, and then spent years just wanting to disappear from the world, because he couldn’t face what he had done. You can feel the remorse and regret of what used to be and what might have been flowing through the entire film, and it’s very powerful, especially during one of the last scenes in the film, which I won’t describe, as you really should see it for yourself. However, it’s not a perpetual downer of a movie either, as you can just as much feel the joy in reconnection that Travis is able to make with his son. The deliberate pace of the film allows the audience to sit with these emotions and really absorb them too, which might make the movie feel a bit slow to some, but this isn’t Tarkovsky levels of deliberacy or anything. I also have to compliment the cinematography, which is often beautiful in Wenders films and is just as much so here. Robby Muller, who did the cinematography on several of Wenders’s films (including The American Friend and Until the End of the World), really knew how to capture a sense of grand yet lonely space, and along with the distinct vibrant yet slightly dark and rich color palette, almost creates a painting-like feel at times. The actors all do a great job delivering these heavy emotions, even without any dialogue sometimes, like in Harry Dean Stanton’s (Travis) case. He really captures the regret and disassociation in Travis’s character, you really believe that he’s internally fraught with the mistakes he’s made and just wants to leave it all behind, but also wants to reconnect or at least try in some small way to do some good for those he wronged. Hunter’s actor, who’s also named Hunter, is surprisingly good too. Child actors can be pretty hit or miss, but Hunter actually comes off rather convincing as a kid his age that’s initially resistant to his returning father, but later opens up and clearly wants to reconnect with him and his mother. His lines never feel forced, nor does it ever sound like he doesn’t know how to deliver them. Apparently, he was played by L. M. Kit Carson’s, one of the film’s writers, son and he went on to have a small acting career afterwards. While he might not have become as well known as other child actors, I’m glad that he still tried to pursue that avenue as much as he could. So, overall, I think this film just does a great job at crafting an emotional journey. It doesn’t force the emotions upon you, but rather allows you to take them all in, and by the end, you feel the full weight of everything you just experienced, both positive and negative. I should probably wrap things up here, since I really think you should watch the film yourself to get the most out of it. Let’s move on to my conclusion.
As you can tell, I liked this film quite a bit. Wenders and his crew did a great job with it, and I even found myself tearing up a little at certain points. I hope that when you watch it, you’ll get as much as I did, if not more. For next week, I’m considering doing some semi-horror themed as a primer for October, since I have a duology of horror films in mind for that month. Look out for that next time, and I hope you enjoy your journey through Paris, Texas.