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Film: "Paris, Texas" (1984).
Everything one had hoped of the German director Win Wenders finally came
together in this American-made picture about a man (Harry Dean Stanton) who
wanders out of the desert and sets about reuniting his dispersed family. Chance
puts him in touch with his brother and seven-year-old son. Can he now make contact
with his estranged wife (Natassja Kinski), living a very different life miles
away? He sets out to find her and the film becomes an epic odyssey, with Robby
Muller's camerawork and Ry Cooder's score underpinning it in a manner that
sometimes makes it look and feel like an old John Ford Western.
Paris, Texas is based for the first time in Wenders's career on a script
by someone else - in this case American playwright Sam Shepard, and his
contribution makes all the difference. Wenders's penchant for dithering with
atmosphere, for dwelling on picturesque locations, is cut through with a
narrative drive that keeps the story forging ahead. Thanks to Sam Shepard,
Wenders has rediscovered how to tell a story more effectively for the screen.
The key scene, towards the end, in which husband and wife communicate only
by telephone, with darkened glass between them, is as powerful as anything in the
picture. Will they finally reunite? That's for the viewer to discover and from the
evidence, the end could go either way.
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