By Zoe Worth
Paris, Texas is a work of exquisite beauty and is something written quite permanently in my memory. Wim Wenders’s stylish tale of weather-beaten drifter Travis Henderson, who finds himself a stranger in his own life, is wistful and haunting. Wenders contemplates the fragility of the Americana cult that dominated much of the era while also leaving us to reflect on lost memories.
Set in the profoundly American desert, the film is printed with a breathtaking sense of emptiness. We are introduced to amnesiac Travis who is in solitude for a reason he doesn’t remember or perhaps doesn’t know at all. Travis, dressed in a shabby suit and baseball cap, is America’s everyman. Henry Dean Stanton’s crusading face is both gaunt and visibly plagued by regret. Bathed in sunlight, Travis is painted with innocence. Wenders offers a poignant meditation on Americana. Akin to Kerouac’s On the Road, sometimes stamped with the ‘nothing happens’ critique, the lack of a linear journey is troubling. We are forced to celebrate and find meaning in the caprice and disarray. The directionless feeling is so familiar. We are reminded of the “heartbreaking potential of the present moment”. It is the art of looking for something that leads to catharsis, despite the complicated feelings of nihilism and nostalgia on the road. When Travis’s long-suffering brother Walt finds him, he is left with no choice but to confront the past. Wenders exhibits this encounter when Travis opens up about his long-forgotten dream to live in Paris, Texas.
Müller’s stunning slow-burn cinematography is utterly mesmerising. Jane and Travis’s romantic road trip is shot through the warm, hazy Super 8 film. There is so much tenderness and comfort in these scenes; contrasting the vast desert shots that precede and follow it. Natassja Kinski plays the gold-hearted Hollywood girl Jane: the American Dream. Part of Paris, Texas’s allure is its impressionability. It is irresistible to watch as the delicate nostalgia seeps through the old Super-8 videos and we find our own memories trickling into this intimate footage. Jane is undoubtedly ethereal, and we are awakened to what Travis is mourning. The disconnection of this scene from the rest of the film is strangely moving. Though we are watching the unfolding of their past, it feels like we are no longer watching a film but rather reminiscing about our own lives. Being so separate, we begin to understand the transience of such memories which are destined to break away.
The moody, elegiac score haunts the nearly two and a half hours of Paris, Texas. Cooder manages to evocatively mirror Travis’s odyssey through the empty Texan prairies. In pursuit of not only some resemblance of modernity, promised by Americana but also his lost past. The simple guitar twang ripples beneath the rare dialogue in the film – cutting through the silence. We are swept away by the power of the “scarcely uttered words”. Cooder sculpts a soundscape that is sad yet whimsical. Like the music, the memories aren’t completely gone but simmer gently beneath: always on the verge of surfacing.
Paris, Texas’s standout scene takes place in a sleazy peep show where Jane is first seen again by her long-lost lover Travis, who has been in limbo trying to find her. Featuring two elegantly wrought monologues, the irreconcilability of their past is finally unveiled. This scene begins with Travis’s sincere recollection of their romance, talking to Jane for presumably the last time. Her face is touched by every brutal revelation of her self-destructive past. Kinski’s sublime beauty encapsulates this, as she stares at the mirror looking for Travis, or rather answers. When she realises she cannot see him, her honesty flows even more in her pining monologue: “I walked around for some months talking to you. Now I don’t know what to say. It was easier when I just imagined you”. Her ice-cold voice shatters the one-way mirror, and we feel like she begins to recognise herself. Permanently separated by the mirror, and their past, these lovers see each other with a despairing clarity. This offers a stunning reflection on the timeless struggle of moving forward, one that ceaselessly taints the American Dream.
Melancholy and minimalistic, Paris, Texas’s charm lies in its subtlety. Even its oblique title gives it a somewhat surreal essence. It transcends the Atlantic creating a sense of distance and removal. Forged from the European eye, it leaves us to observe. It is the American Dream from the outside- for all its glamour and flaws. The perspective is truly unjudgmental. Its bittersweet ending where Travis watches Jane and Hunter’s reunion reminds us that though it may be pretty to long for the past, there is much to cherish in the present. In an act of touching selflessness, Travis sacrifices his romantic nostalgia for Jane and Hunter’s future. Paris, Texas, in a Hemingway-esque style, reminds us that the sun always rises even if the past is behind us. Wenders captures the lust for memories that will never satisfy the longing for something more enduring. We are left to hope that this family find this.
A gorgeous postcard of redemption and reverence; Wenders casts an eye on America as only an outsider can. It is as much about the words left unsaid and the things left undone. A brutally honest love letter to Americana- Paris, Texas is a film I will certainly come back to.