"Paris, Texas" is a Sublime, Poetic Film

Paris, Texas is an sure handed, gorgeous, and deeply unique film.  In terms of its look, feel and narrative, the film is enigmatic, mysterious and often achingly real. The cinematography by  Robby Muller is like that of the Midwest just before a sunset -- ethereal, wistful and beautiful -- and director Wim Wenders takes advantage of a number of vast, open ended, beautiful natural and urban Texas locales. There's a sense of haunting longing underlying the searing, pulsating look to the film. A longing that becomes jaggedly painful the more we discover about the past of cryptic, inscrutable protagonist amnesiac Travis Henderson (Harry Dean Stanton). Travis appears in a Texas desert with no recollection of how he got there and little memory of the past few years during which he inexplicably went missing. His brother Walt (Dean Stockwell) is shocked when he receives a phone call from a doctor who treated Stanton after he passed out. Walt had presumed him dead and has since been in care of his seven year old son. He goes to pick up Travis but his brother is noticeably strange; he is near mute, walks away at random, will only sit in the back seat of the car and has a panic attack when they try to ride a plane. He's tight lipped about where he has been or why, only dropping impenetrable hints about what happened. Eventually they make it back to Los Angeles where Walt and his wife Anne (Aurore Clement) have been raising his son for nearly the past four years -- she isn't too keen on the idea of returning custody back to Travis. Travis attempts to awkwardly and slowly reconnect with his son before realizing he needs to track down his missing wife Jane (Nastassja Kinski). Using information acquired from his sister-in-law, he takes his son with him back to Texas to find her and fix the irreparable mess he has caused. It involves a painful, powerful reckoning to come to terms with what he has done in a spine-tinglingly observed climactic scene. Wenders holds our attention with a lack of predictability, stunning cinematography, sharp characterization and strong acting.

Grade: A