"Back when Paris, Texas was merely a film I’d constructed from fragments of my imagination, I always believed that I knew what it was about, was sure I understood the poetic words hanging in its vacant space, and thought I felt the aching beauty of it all. I loved it in that perverse and wonderful way you can only love something unattainable, cherishing it like a worn-out photograph that lives forever in your back pocket, something that has seen the world even when you could not. But it wasn’t until recently that I felt I truly listened to what the film was trying to say, opening myself up to what it had to teach me about coping with the pain of love and the patience of longing.
Perhaps this is so, or perhaps it’s simply a testament to all the ways a film can live alongside you over the years, like a true companion, growing up with you and showing you more about yourself as you reflect back on it. Though with a film like Paris, Texas, it’s not only about the moments in which you’re watching it, but about the echoes it leaves behind. Sure, you can appreciate the flickering neon lights in the distance and the pastel skies cast against the browns and greens that rise in the landscape—the ode to still life Americana that once was and may never be again—but if you can’t feel all the yearning in its silences or recognize the crushing weight that comes with looking love in the eye and knowing you must let it go, then you haven’t allowed yourself to fully succumb to what lies at the very core of Wenders’ film.”
—Hillary Weston on Paris, Texas (1984)
(Bright Wall/Dark Room, September 2013)
LOVE THIS FILM.
YES