Skip to main content

"Paris, Texas" movie review


I kept mum and waited patiently for an agonising week with my nerves taut like strings on Hendrix’s electric guitar. Presently, I turned my AC down, switched off my mobile, closed the door shut- I have made absolutely sure that there are no distractions. So I am not thirsty or hungry, I have had something to eat. Under one last conscious breath, arms stretched like a warrior on the battle field with his stuttering machine gun, I am typing as if there is no end to it. I have seen ‘Paris, Texas’.

Movie opens with the protagonist caught up in the middle of a desert, no shadows to take refuge in; no oasis to grow expectancy for. No creature in the horizon, vision foggy, tears forming circles in his eyes as he looks heavenwards. But something is amiss in his demeanour; he is not a novice in the no man’s land. He is on a journey to the end of nowhere, is he running forward hoping to meet someone who can give him the answers that he is looking for? Is he running away from someone who has the answers that he does not want to listen to?

The movie is an allegorical tale alluding to something very profound. Protagonist has lost 4 years of his life wandering aimlessly in the deserts, he has silently repressed all his memories of past life and is immune to any inquiries of that life. Director very gradually pulls the viewers into the suburbs, into a house located on the hilltop from where the whole expanse of the buzzing city life can be seen. In the middle class family of the 80s, protagonist is shown decidedly permissive of an intrusion of life. He lets life come upon him-from his past four years, he finds himself awaken, but not so affirmatively yet. For he befriends his son, but is apprehensive about his stepping into a life redolent of past.

He shaves his beard, puts on neat trousers, polishes his boots and meets his wife in a brothel house. There we, the viewers find ourselves stopping short of stroking our chins, for now the mystery is revealed, and there is not much to be said? Here I think the movie illumines, it doesn’t progress any further, it merely expands into this bright light that blinds every eye that watches the movie, saddens every mind that has let itself into the movie, into the director’s perspicacious argument.

‘Paris, Texas’ is not a new concept, on the contrary, it is quite old. Kate Winslet’s ‘revolutionary road’ ends on a tragic note, this one ends on a purposeful loving embrace between the wife who prostituted herself and her son. Ed norton’s ‘painted veil’ ends with Norton dying under the firm realisation that his wife and he have had a fulfilling final memory-an acknowledgment of every wrong and right. ‘paris, texas’ is not tragic, it is not sad, it is not melancholic, I found it lovable. I loved the protagonist’s prostitute wife at the end, and for making that character lovable, I think the man behind the development of the character had to be someone incredibly clever.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Entrenched Prejudices taking the form of Patriotism

What a great way to celebrate the Independence Day? I am bemused, apparently owing to the wide exposure of emotional experiences hitherto seemed innocuous. Delve a little deep into the acquaintance with idea "patriotism", one will invariably be granted with an uncalled inquisition, one gets to stare at a disconcerting vacuum. Why do we brand ourselves with nations that are a mere collection of geographically propelled, culturally augmented, self aggrandizing people? Answer is elusive to many for the reasons best known to them hitherto for their own good are turning skeptical now. Man whom the evolutionists assert shares a common ancestor with chimps and gibbons, naturally after parting his ways with his cousins (chimps, gibbons) choose to retain a comprehensive emotional, physiological and mental disposition. Man, if he ever chooses to embark on a space ship that supposedly travels back in time is bound to diminish his self esteem owing to his impromptu urge to track his ance...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pressure Cooker

Daubing the top of wicks, one by one, with drops of kerosene, J proceeded to rest her newly bought Hawkins pressure cooker on the stove. “Now, you wait for the whistle” said the wealthy neighbouring lady who assisted J that morning with the cooker. With an assumed indifference, J waited for the whistle to lift its bottom over the lid and dance in merry. The kerosene stove, she was told won’t do justice to the cooker; she needed a proper gas stove with sleek finish and hollowed eyes that spewed blue flames with the turn of a switch. The kerosene stove with its twelve tongues brocaded over the epithelial layer of its throat, strung into a circle, served her family since the time of marriage. Her son squatted beside her, giggled and found it amusing as J rubbed his cheeks with her hands warmed before the many tongued stove. In the forlorn house under the wooden roof that leaked, between the pale brown walls that flaked, over the grey rugged tiles that cracked, mother and son lent their t...
Post a Comment
Read more

The moth that covered my face!

My dog came prancing and dancing towards me, I started petting him almost impulsively, took his ears and rolled them over his head hither and thither, stroked his forehead, he was enjoying my attention blushingly perhaps, and he leant his head downwards and was swaying around to get the most of affection. And, suddenly he leapt forward with his hind legs brushing my knee cap, I looked over and he was merrily teasing a moth which apparently fell over on its back and was trying desperately to climb back into a more modest stand. Well, anatomically speaking, the moth had a curved back, smooth with shiny plate like outer skin that extended from front to rear forming quite an armour. It had tiny legs, it was just too hard to find out how many though, drawn so close to the body in a twisted tangled mess, it looked as if, the insect was bothering perhaps a little too much about its legs. On any other occasion, the moth would have leisurely entertained me with its physical theatrics, but this...
Post a Comment
Read more