Paris, Texas

A place for dreams. A place for heartbreak. A place to pick up the pieces. One of the greatest filmmakers still alive today is without a single sentilla of a doubt is Oscar-nominated German director/producer/writer Wim Wenders. However, he, while being Oscar-nominated in his time, is a very under-appreciated figure in the cinema world. With that being said, he has many phenomenal works in his expansive filmography that are regarded as some of the greatest in 20th century cinema. One such film is his stunning magnum opus: Paris, Texas (1984), the odyssey of a wandering drifter missing for 4 years out of the desert to reconnect with the public, his life, and, above all, his family. It’s by far one of the most profound pieces of art, let alone movies, I’ve ever seen in my life and times. You heard correctly. This masterpiece film is more than just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill Hollywood production. It is a piece of art that ought to be respected by MUCH more people than already do. I liken it to da Vinci’s Mona Lisa painting. The Mona Lisa of Cinema is more like it. The lives of whomever gets the chance and privilege to view this anti-romantic film will be forever altered like mine was. I guarantee it. This piece of captivatingly brilliant entertainment is one of, if not the single most emotional film that came out of the 20th century cinema canon, in my opinion. If it doesn’t make you cry on the first go- around, it’s sure to make you think about doing so. It’ll make you think about the sad, put down moments of your life and why those moments often made you breakdown. How is this achieved? Well, Wenders, without relying on a plot, puts his directorial focus on outstanding cinematography and compelling performances from the likes of Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski, and Dean Stockwell, among other fine actors and actresses. Such performers play their respective roles so defiantly that it helps, along with a powerhouse screenplay, the film present the extremes of love, pain, and great loss with tremendous instantaneousness and savage frankness that one can do nothing but watch in complete and utter astonishment at nearly every movement, camera angle, utterance, and scene transition in this unforgettable movie. Marvelous beyond words. You might not like it, but it’s an undeniable masterclass in how emotional filmmaking should be done by one of cinema’s underrated masters.

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