Wim Wenders' "Paris, Texas" is heartache put on screen.
Harry Dean Stanton, in a quietly powerful performance, plays Travis, a man who emerges stunned from the Texas desert at the film's beginning and embarks on an odyssey that sees him reunited with his abandoned son and his estranged wife. The film plays out like a mystery -- we know that Travis's son has been living with Travis's brother and sister-in-law for the last four years, but we don't know why he was left behind by this mother and father. That mystery is eventually unraveled when Travis and his wife, Jane (played by Nastassja Kinski), meet again and we learn more about their sorrowful and bruising history.
"Paris, Texas" is largely about two people who are capable of extreme passion and emotion but who are unable to cope with what those passions and emotions bring out in them. Travis and Jane were overwhelmed by their responsibility to each other and their son -- a life voluntarily chosen became a grim trap from which one would literally kill the other to escape. This part of the story is only told to us, never shown. What we see are the regret, remorse and nostalgia felt by two people who will always have a strong connection -- both emotionally and literally through their boy -- but who know they can never again be together. At the end, Travis drives away into the night, and though his ultimate fate is ambiguous, we feel that he's leaving his wife and child for good. Whether to protect them, or himself (or maybe both) is for us to decide.
Grade: A
Harry Dean Stanton, in a quietly powerful performance, plays Travis, a man who emerges stunned from the Texas desert at the film's beginning and embarks on an odyssey that sees him reunited with his abandoned son and his estranged wife. The film plays out like a mystery -- we know that Travis's son has been living with Travis's brother and sister-in-law for the last four years, but we don't know why he was left behind by this mother and father. That mystery is eventually unraveled when Travis and his wife, Jane (played by Nastassja Kinski), meet again and we learn more about their sorrowful and bruising history.
"Paris, Texas" is largely about two people who are capable of extreme passion and emotion but who are unable to cope with what those passions and emotions bring out in them. Travis and Jane were overwhelmed by their responsibility to each other and their son -- a life voluntarily chosen became a grim trap from which one would literally kill the other to escape. This part of the story is only told to us, never shown. What we see are the regret, remorse and nostalgia felt by two people who will always have a strong connection -- both emotionally and literally through their boy -- but who know they can never again be together. At the end, Travis drives away into the night, and though his ultimate fate is ambiguous, we feel that he's leaving his wife and child for good. Whether to protect them, or himself (or maybe both) is for us to decide.
Grade: A