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Wow. Paris, Texas is a trememdously brilliant, deep, unusual movie whcih Roger Ebert described in his 1984 review as ‘defiantly individual’ and this it certainly is. It’s impossible to guess from the exposition where exactly the movie is going to go – just like Stanton’s character. Where has he been? Where is he going? Does he even know?

Like Herzog’s equally brilliant ‘Stroszek’, to which this movie may be destined to be forever compared, it is the director’s ‘America’ movie using similar imagery, from the bold scenes of the desert vistas and the railroads and the trailer parks to much more subtle images (such as a trucker’s cap with the word ‘Stetson’ written on it serving as a metonymic device for the real thing).

The denouement is one of the most interesting and unique in any movie I have ever come across. It is certainly not uplifting, but at the same time it is not deeply saddening. It is not predictable or trite but is definitely not ‘wild’ or ‘David Lynch’. It is full of heart, full of words but at the same time echoes with a hollow apathy as the characters, without spoiling the plot, seem to finally come to terms with their detachment and do little more than break even. It’s a wonderful, emotional work of art.

i find that this film resonates with, not only me, but should to all. It’s not that i relate completely to Travis and his character, i feel that we all have a “Paris, Texas” in our minds, as cheesy as it sounds. To me, Paris, Texas was not a place of particular importance, rather, an arbritrary place in the desert, almost like a mirage, where we have delusions of eternal happiness.

after seemingly coming to terms with his wife, jane, i found the film ended plausibly. when we find out the entire backstory, the closing scene plays an excellent contrast to the wife’s violent recollection of what transpired, on the night that she and her son split from Travis. Strangely, it is at that moment , to me anyway, that they are finally a family, not in the traditional sense we often see in shows like “Leave it to beaver”, but as a more “real”, contemporary family.

Paris – Texas
Wonderous visuals, some truly wonderful scenes, but otherwise somewhat of a letdown. The film could have benfited to a more rhythmic editing style, As a novel it’s spaciousness could pass because simply you are going at your pace but getting through this film was difficult for the first hour, things didn’t particularly get drammatic or engaging only at certain plot points not really justifying a 2 1/2 hour runtime.
“Just Wow them in the end.”
This film’s ending is among one of the most poetic and beautiful in american films, that being said i don’t believe it justifies the first hour and a half of rambling and confusion creating drama.

A man who had been in an impasse for four years is finally rescued by his family (brother and sister-in-law) and being reconnected to his past revives his memory just enough so that he is able to come to terms with his personal failures and bring his young son and his long lost wife together again. Without his brother or his son’s involvement, he would not have been able to find his wife which points to the nature of memory and the importance of connections between people. The film is also about the failure of personal relationships due to one’s inability to see and accept one’s partner for who he or she is as in the case of the protagonist’s father who wanted his plain (but good) wife to be someone “fancy” (beautiful and glamorous). The protagonist’s wife is beautiful in contrast to his plain mother but he unfortunately lacks the self-confidence of a man who can hold on to a beautiful wife and his insecurities and jealous tendencies drive his wife away. The admission of his failings in a redemptive scene where he tells his wife how a certain man lost the people he loved most and where she realizes that it is her husband speaking to her from the other side of a one-way mirror is convincing as the climax of this memorable film.