Paris, Texas - 1984 - 4 Stars

Actors: Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell, Nastassja Kinski
Director: Wim Wenders

Paris, Texas's opening credits claim that the film won the Palme D'Or at Cannes in 1984. I don't know why a film production company would put this there except to say, "People better than you thought this was a great movie, so you better damn well like it." Watching an award-winning film reminds me of the old Homer Simpson line - 'I don't want to build it up too much, but this will be better than ten Super Bowls!'. Nothing ruins a film like Paris, Texas more than eager anticipation.

Watching this film yesterday, I felt myself beginning to doze off, and stopped it around a third of the way through. The film seemed too similar in theme to Gerry, Stroszek, Easy Rider, and the Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada; it's similarly glacially paced, and I thought the characters were totally flat, the film entirely too precious - the sort of thing that people at Cannes love. I considered sending it back and putting it on my queue again in a few months - it wasn't fair that I was harshly judging it because I'd seen so many films like it recently.

Today, it won me over - great visuals, a story that's almost worth it, and dialogue that's not witty or entertaining but true. Everything in this film is kind of loose and illogical and it just sort of happens - I tend to downgrade movies like this (e.g. Stroszek, and Wenders's Wings of Desire) - but there are some wonderful touches that make this worth viewing.