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There are films that say little because they know that words can’t always cope with the pain. , directed by remains current precisely because it understands that human suffering is rarely organized into clear discourses. It manifests itself in absences, distances and looks that avoid direct confrontation with the past.
Paris Texas/ Photo: Reproduction
The story of Travis, a man who appears in the desert after years of disappearance, is handled with an almost disconcerting delicacy. Wenders is in no rush to explain who he is or what happened. The film relies on time, repetition of gestures and silent coexistence to reconstruct a fragmented identity. The narrative develops as an emotional journey, where each step carries the weight of what was not said.
Robby Müller’s photography is fundamental to this experience. The open landscapes of the desert contrast with the closed, artificial spaces of the cities, creating a visual metaphor for the characters’ emotional state. The saturated colors, neons and carefully composed frames do not beautify the pain, they isolate it, highlight it and make it impossible to ignore. In Paris, Texas, the setting does not follow the story: it translates it.
Paris Texas/ Photo: Reproduction
Harry Dean Stanton delivers a restrained and deeply human performance. His Travis is a broken character, but never caricatural. Stanton builds this figure based on silence, body posture and the evident difficulty in reconnecting with the world. Every word spoken seems to cost effort, as if the past still takes up too much space within him.
The reunion with his son and, later, with Jane, played by Nastassja Kinski, leads the film to its most devastating moment. Wenders transforms a simple conversation into one of the most painful dialogues in the history of cinema, using frames that physically separate the characters to reinforce the impossibility of total reparation. There is no easy catharsis, only delayed recognition and irreversible loss.
Revisited today, it dialogues with a world equally marked by displacement, loneliness and difficulty in communication. It’s a film about men who don’t know how to deal with feelings, about broken families and about the illusion that it’s possible to simply pick up where you left off. The past, here, is not something to be overcome, it is something that needs to be faced, even if it hurts.
Paris Texas/ Photo: Reproduction
More than a romantic drama or a melancholy road movie, Paris, Texas is a study in identity and guilt, filmed with rare sensitivity and absolute respect for silence. A classic that doesn’t age because it continues to understand something essential: some wounds never close, but they still need to be named.
Fhagner Soares — cinema from another perspective.
