Paris, Texas

Another of those movies that would probably have been on my "Blind Spot" list if I took part in the "Blind Spot" blogathon is Paris, Texas. I've stated before that I don't take part mostly because it requires me coming up with a series of movies that I'm going to be watching over a full year. Since I generally don't know what's going to be showing up to watch that far in advance, I don't take part and just get around to watching the movies I haven't seen before when they do show up. In the case of Paris, Texas, that was quite some time back that TCM ran it and I recorded it. Once again, I watched it before it expired, and then wrote and scheduled this post.

A man walks through a desert in west Texs with just a gallon jug of water in his hands. Stupidly, he discards the jug upon emptying it. He makes it to a building that has what looks like an honor bar: take a drink and pay for it. The man takes some ice, but eventually faints on the floor. Thankfully, there was another person in the bar who takes the man to the closest thing there is to a doctor. When said doctor goes through the man's things looking for some ID, he finds a card with the name and phone number of a Walt Henderson (Dean Stockwell).

Walt lives in the Los Angeles area, where he works as a graphic designer designing billboards and lives with his wife Anne (Aurore Clément). Walt isn't exactly pleased to get the phone call, since taking time off work is going to be a hassle although that's really the least of the issues. Walt knows that the man in Texas is actually his brother Travis (Harry Dean Stanton). Travis dropped out of life four years ago, and worse, put his kid in a taxi and sent the kid to Walt and Anne's place because Travis' wife Jane similarly dropped out of life. The kid was almost too young at the time to remember his biological parents, and Walt and Anne have raised the kid, Hunter, as their own, not having any biological children themselves. So how is the kid going to deal with having this stranger back in his life?

Of course, simply getting Travis to LA is going to be tough. Travis goes on about Paris, since his and Walt's parents joked about conceiving Travis in Paris. Travis has a photo of a plot of land that he claims to own, and Walt doesn't get what this has to do with Paris since Walt doesn't yet realize that there is a town in Texas also called Paris which is where the land is. Also, Travis keeps trying to run away and doesn't talk for the longest time.

Eventually, however, they do get back to Los Angeles, and Travis starts talking. At this point, you'd think Walt and Anne would start talking with Travis about whether he might try getting a job and reintegrating into normal human life. Instead, Anne tells Travis about a bank account that Hunter has, one which gets regular deposits by wire transfer in the days when there was no internet to do such electronic transfers. The money is presumably coming from Hunter's mother Jane, and those transfers are coming from a bank in Houston, so Travis takes Hunter and drives off toward Houston in the hopes of finding Jane since apparently not so many branches could do these transfers at the time.

Travis and Hunter basically set about stalking the bank, and find a woman who looks like she could be Jane (Nastassja Kinski) and start following her, eventually coming to a nondescript building in a crappy part of Houston that serves as the home for the sort of business you wouldn't want your mother to be working for. But is this woman really Jane? And if so, will Travis be able to make real contact with her?

Paris, Texas is a movie that certainly has an interesting premise, although it's another one that I found myself thinking is full of characters who certainly wouldn't be acting that way in real life. It's also one that definitely goes way too slowly at times. The running time is about 145 minutes, and is the sort of story that I think could easily have been edited to get down to under two hours. Still, I can understand why there are a lot of people who would find Paris, Texas to be interesting for how different it is from traditional Hollywood fare. Definitely watch and judge for yourself.