Harness of Wilderness

Paris, Texas, Wim Wenders, 1984

The name of the film couldn’t have been more redolent of the twin flames that make two halves of one whole in screenplay form. The punctuation between the two locations signifies that the former is a small region within the latter province, but the two proper nouns suggest an intercontinental diversity across nations; in this case, France and the US. The film traverses the existential trajectories punctuated within both metaphors.?

For a deep, introspective film, the narrative is pretty linear, largely moving from point A to point B and onwards, save for the fag-end wordy affair that goes back and forth, albeit only as monologues sans flashback – explicit or otherwise.????

Wandering aimlessly through the thick of the desert, our protagonist Travis Henderson (Harry Dean Stanton) collapses at a store alongside a gas station in a desperate attempt to quench his thirst, midway through what seems like some soul-cleansing expedition. Having endured a short stay at the nearest clinic run by a slimy doctor keen to make a fast buck, he is reunited with his brother Walt (Dean Stockwell) after four long years. Walt drives Travis home from Texas to LA but only after clearing a painful hide-in-seek litmus test with his sibling, thanks to the latter’s extreme reluctance to terminate his wilful exile.

It is at the LA home that Travis comes face to face with his son Hunter (Hunter Carson) and old memories are rekindled when he revisits a Super 8 Kodak footage of his wife Jane (Nastassja Kinski, daughter of celebrated German actor Klaus Kinski) en route a happy road trip from a distant past.

A silent resolve germinates in his mind despite knowing well that it would cause inevitable ripples in the life of the childless couple - Walt and his French wife Anne (Aurore Clement) - now doting parents to Hunter, apart from being his magnanimous benefactors.

Yet, Travis is absolutely sure of his plan of tracing the whereabouts of his estranged wife led by the cues Anne provides in a clandestine tete-a-tete. After the initial reserve and inhibition, his son Hunter begins to trace vital remains of his biological father in the now skinny, bony apparition keen to make friends with him. It’s not long before Travis takes the bright and chirpy kid into confidence and shares choicest portions of his plan.

Father and son set about their covert mission in a battered Ford pickup that Travis has secured with his brother’s money. A bigger challenge awaits Travis after he finds Jane; she’s now a regular staffer at a sleazy peep show parlour in Houston, indulging customers through one-on-one phone conversations in provocative costumes. Travis uses his desert guile to reach out to her in two attempts, first to make sure she’s not neck-deep into the business, and second to establish co-ordinates of mind and soul by posing as one of her customers. He reveals his identity by recounting their real life story as a fable, which she picks up in the course of the narration, either at the very start or midway through it, as both possibilities have tell-tale signs in the footage to support their plausibility. Jane is enthused enough to bare her soul in exchange, and a semblance of an elusive rapport between the separated couple begins to take shape.?

Travis scores a resounding goal when he reunites mother and son in a plush hotel (unlike the cheap motels he’s used to) ?but he is not with them to cheer it. He leaves yet again to lose himself in the rough country, but this time there’s no desperation. Instead, an implicit relief rooted in restitution fuels his onward journey into nihility.???

The end makes for a glorious climax on reels, but it doesn’t condone the viewer’s perplexment about the protagonist’s psyche and extreme choices. Yes, we know from the parlour episode about his extreme fondness for his beautiful wife, much younger to him, which grew into an obsession overwhelming enough to make him shun work and stay home with her. We are also told how the wife resented this mindless attention when the household was hit by dwindling finances, and he hit the bottle in turn. We are aware how his rage made him a suspicious spouse and irresponsible parent.

Yet, none of it explains why he should decide to fade away in oblivion. There’s no commensurate build up or back story to help expound either his fatal disillusionment or his consistent lack of concern for the feelings of his selfless brother and his good-natured wife. In contrast, there’s a lot of rich cinematic ammunition to vindicate his preposterous waywardness, like the masterly shots of arid desert landscapes, fleeting glimpses of highway motels, weather-beaten vehicles, life-sized but lifeless movie posters, archetypal montage of LA neighbourhoods and Houston highways, and a delightfully haunting musical score that add colour and depth to his melancholy state.?

A compulsive escapist who clings to the harness of wilderness shunning all filial responsibilities in a supposedly futile search on a flimsy pretext that leads him nowhere save for a black hole of nothingness ideally doesn’t make for an endearing protagonist. Yet, you stay glued to the screen as the movie rolls at a lazy, languid pace, thanks to the sterling conviction of director Wim Wenders and screenwriter duo Sam Shepard and L. M. Kit Carson. Clearly, the questions they raise through the film are far bigger and better that those that perplex us. In any case, when life itself is inherently illogical, why should we insist on plausibility of character action in a commendable cinematic endeavour that probes into the darkest recesses of the human mind. If? we accept Travis without his backstory, we touch the soul of the movie the way the makers want us to, which also does justice to the phenomenal performance of the lead actor, matched with aplomb by a marvellous support cast.

Hollywood’s thankless veteran Harry Dean Stanton, who was not the first choice for the role, was god sent as Travis given a whole lot to his advantage: his turbulent Kentucky upbringing, Buddhist ideals, affinity for country music, and above all his scrawny frame and movie-friendly face. No wonder, he once famously said, “If I never did another film after?Paris, Texas, I’d be happy.”

Hunter Carson as Hunter certainly ranks among the best child characters ever etched on celluloid. The father-son chemistry that unfolds on screen is definitely one of the film’s most resonant parts, at par with the allegorical saloon booth scenes between Travis and Jane.?

That this film won the Palme d’Or at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival speaks volumes of the jury’s criterion for that year. Such verdicts are unthinkable in contemporary times as we are more used to the baffling voting patters of the Academy Awards which bestowed seven Oscars on the Marvel-like extravaganza ‘Oppenheimer’, only because it was a Nolan film, never mind if the story and characterization were shattered to pieces by the nuclear explosion in the name of technical finesse.?

Mohan Agashe sir you will like this film if you haven't watched it already!