Paris Texas Essay

Wenders’s Family Feud: Paris, Texas Wim Wenders 1984 film Paris, Texas is a movie part of the New German Cinema movement that curiously takes place in the United States. The film follows Travis Henderson, who begins the film as a mute man found wandering the desert in Texas by his brother Walt. Walt, with great effort, takes Travis back to his home in Los Angeles, where Travis reunites with his now 7-year-old son, after stopping contact and disappearing four years ago. Travis and his son Hunter reconnect and search for his mother. While films like Werner Herzog’s Stroszek comment rather explicitly on American society with a bare bones story, Paris has a rather bleak message coated by an interesting story. Watching the film was much more enjoyable than Stroszek, especially because of the characters. While I enjoyed the mix of characters, the film ends with the realization that almost no one has a resolution. Travis is a mystery to us in the first half hour as he never speaks, but further on we come to appreciate his work in becoming a father to Hunter again. This all changes by the end when we learn of his abusive nature and he leaves once more after reuniting Hunter with Jane. …show more content…
Despite the focus on Walt and his wife Anne throughout the film, along with the conflict how both of them did not want to lose Hunter as their son, this is never resolved and we do not see them again after Hunter’s call on their way to Houston. It seemed this film was leading up to this question- who does Hunter belong to? Should he start living with his estranged father and mother, or stay with his aunt and uncle who have been his parents for half of his life? These questions are not answered within the film, and so the question of ‘what is family’ is left open to the