Film Friday: Paris, Texas

Before I start with the review I'd like to say that this week's review is a bit rushed because my film library was lost to me when my hard drive broke. So yeah, I made due with the few films I had available. Fortunately, I still had enough hard copies to do some reviews.

Onward...

This movie is weird. And I don't mean it's weird in the way that the content or the plot is weird I mean it's weird in that the film itself and the effect that it has on people is weird. Maybe it's the haunting slide guitar soundtrack by Ry Cooder. Maybe it's the wide, sprawling landscapes. Maybe it's the repeated use of the color red  and various other themes that give this movie an incredibly special quality that make it stick with you long after you watch it. This is the movie that inspired U2 on their album The Joshua Tree.  Kurt Cobain called it his favorite movie of all time. Plenty of bands, businesses, and other figures have taken inspiration from it. This movie will haunt you.

I remember my first time experiencing it was at a Wintersession class at LSU. Philosophy in Film. This was the only  film that I enjoyed. It tells the story of Travis, a man who has been lost to the world for the past four years and his return to civilization, his family, and his attempt to reconnect and rediscover what happened between him, his wife, and his son. The movie follows him as he returns with his brother to California and eventually back to Texas.  Although it drags in some parts and by all accounts should be the most boring movie ever made, somehow it comes across as a vivid, entertaining, emotional movie and the end of this movie is one of the most purely bittersweet moments in cinema that I have ever experienced in my life. 

All in all, Paris, Texas is the kind of movie that when the credits finally roll, leaves you thinking about life, about America, and about the choices that we make as we move through this world.

I'd say that makes it one of the greatest movies ever made.

I give it an absolutely solid 5 broken hard drives out of 5