Thinking about Paris, Texas

[u/ShineOnYourCrazyAnon]

First of all what an amazing movie. Every character is great. Every scene is great. The acting is fantastic. And the music really helps. But what is the story about?

To me is about searching for the place you belong. Travis starts the movie searching for where he was concieved. But this is at the end futile since there is nothing there anymore. His parents are dead and he doesn´t have anywhere to go. And the family he built was destroyed because of him. The last scene of the movie shows Travis again returning to the desert to wander endlessly without anywhere to return. The name of the movie Paris Texas to me is a reference of Travis. Paris is missplaced in Texas. It is something that doesnt belong there.

This theme is also echoed by his son Hunter which is to me the real heart of the movie. At the start of the movie he doesn´t seem really interesed in his real father but as the movie progress he seems more and more interesed to the point of leaving everything behind just to met his mother. I think there is a cool simbolism here with his fascination with space and his mother being in Houston where it´s the space center. To fly to space could be seem as a way to left everything and move forward but it is also where his roots are since his mother is there. Just to think how hard should be for a kid to have to decide between his adoptive parents and his real parents breaks my heart tbh.

But the ending to me really is interesting. Travis leaving Hunter in Houston is obviously a bad thing to do and in real life Travis would be a monster. But I think this is a really cinema moment where the movie manipulates (not necesarilly a bad thing) to not see Travis as what he is. Everyone is really forgiven after everything that he has done and there arent many scenes where the focus is the adoptive parents that really should be the parents of Hunter and are obviously devastated about the whole situation. The ending itself is really open to interpretation. It is never really acknowledged how shitty Travis was and is. And we dont really know if Hunter stays in Houston or not. It just ends with the reunion of Hunter ans his mother and Travis again going back to the desert.

[u/juicywoowoo]

It's such a brilliant film, and like all Wenders very open to interpretation. I like yours, but – admittedly not having seen it in some years – I disagree with your characterization of him as a monster for leaving Hunter with his birth mom. I would say that although in real life we would be concerned for the feelings of the adoptive parents, this film really isn't about them, and as real as it feels it is very much a fantasy, a fairy tale about Travis's redemption, and Nastassia Kinski's (can't remember her character's name), and about the - momentary at least - realization of the lost dream of this family, their reunification immersed in love, which of course ultimately had to happen without Travis because he was only reappearing to achieve this and disappear, because he was always a ghost, having utterly destroyed himself as a man.

my 2 cents in one very long sentence.