2 hrs 27 mins, BFI subscription, some cinemas

⭐⭐⭐

A beautifully crafted film, but the substance doesn’t always live up to the style.

If last week’s National Cinema Day is anything to go by, reports of the death of movie-going are greatly exaggerated. You wouldn’t necessarily think that a two-and-a-half-hour film from 1984 would sell out a London cinema theatre on a Saturday evening. And yet our screening of Wim Wenders’ indie darling Paris, Texas was packed out completely. Whether it was the promotional £4 tickets for National Cinema Day or the bougie sensibilities of the clientele of the Brixton Ritzy, who can say. But it’s clear the silver screen can still draw in a crowd. 

Paris, Texas unfolds languorously, starting in the middle of nowhere (literally) and taking its sweet time to mosey along to the narrative. An unnamed mute emerges from the Texan desert, scruffy and seemingly aimless. A doctor picks him up and rings the only contact he can find, our protagonist’s brother Walt. As Walt slowly coaxes his brother back to life, we learn that Travis (for that is his name) has been missing for the past four years, following the breakdown of his marriage to the also-absconded Jane. In the intervening years Travis’ young son Hunter has come to see Walt and his wife Anne as his own mother and father. The film sees Travis attempt to reconnect with his son and eventually take him on a road trip in search of the elusive, enigmatic Jane.

It was certainly worth seeing Paris, Texas on a big screen, because there’s no doubt that it’s simply beautiful to look at. Cinematographer Robby Muller saturates the colour of the desert scenes, from the dense blue of the sky to the stark red of the sand. It feels as though heat is radiating from the screen, reinforcing the strong sense of place suggested by the film’s title. Even in some of the later urban scenes, there are some really striking, considered shots – Wenders finds artistry in such simple things as the curve of an overpass or the parallel lines of skyscraper windows. 

The studied, deliberate nature of the aesthetic is matched in the narrative and the way the story develops. Partly this is courtesy of Sam Shepard and L M Kit Carson as screenwriters, but it’s also obviously a result of choices by Wenders to let scenes languish beyond the words on the page. This is a slow film. Scenes are unhurried and often not focused on driving the narrative forward; sometimes they are contemplative conversations, other times very little seems to be happening at all. This works both in the film’s favour and against it. Some of the scenes are beautiful in their simplicity, particularly when Travis is reconnecting with his son Hunter – such as when they walk home from school on opposite sides of the road, or when Travis patiently listens to Hunter’s endearing rambles on space travel. But by the end of the film, this tendency towards lengthy navel-gazing starts to wear thin – especially as we reach the culmination of Travis’ quest.

One of the joys of reviewing an older film is that I don’t feel the need to avoid spoilers (honestly people, you’ve had 40 years now). The third act sees Travis track down the wayward Jane at a sort of telephone-based peep show, and over the course of two seemingly interminable scenes he retells her the story of their own failed romance (including when he tied her to the radiator out of jealousy for the lover she didn’t have). It seems as though the film is playing this for sympathy – Jane slowly breaks down over the course of the scene, the camera trained on her almost exclusively. And yet the more Travis divulges his envious rages and mistreatment of Jane, the more tedious it becomes to sit through his extended monologuing. Harry Dean Stanton (Travis) was 58 when this film came out, while Nastassja Kinski (Jane) was just 23, and it’s mentioned that Jane had Hunter when she was only 17. A more in-depth exploration of her perspective on the breakdown of her seemingly tortuous marriage, and becoming a mother so young, is sadly lacking – aside from a few brief lines and extended periods of crying. (To say nothing of the cheap and nasty filmmaking shortcut of having her appear as a sex worker, because of course we all know that’s the lowest a woman can fall.) Though that’s of course bringing a modern sensibility to the story, the film’s unyielding, lengthy focus on Travis’ personal journey makes it all the more challenging to overlook these jarring elements.  

Creepy age difference aside, there’s no question Stanton and Kinski are acting their hearts out. Stanton has one of those faces made for acting – craggy and characterful, he gets across a whole inner world with the smallest of gestures and expressions. The other standout I felt was Hunter Henderson as Travis’ son. Child actors often struggle with heavy material, but Henderson never falters in any scene – he’s endearing throughout and one of the most watchable parts of the movie. 

A fan of this film would probably say that it’s a mistake to assume Wenders wants us to sympathise with Travis. After all, he abandoned his son for four years, and at the end of the story gets no happy ending, disappearing again and leaving only a recorded goodbye message for Hunter. Maybe that’s true, but either way (whether Travis is a hero or a villain or somewhere in between) the highly introspective nature of this film makes Travis’ story less compelling as the film goes on. Yet there’s no denying the pure craft of this movie, with thought and care put into every creative choice. Narrative quirks aside, it’s worth a watch on a big screen if you can find it.