I am grieving a little bit for my 24-year-old self. Paris, Texas was the movie for me in the 80s. I was living in London with a lot of time on my hands and not that big a social circle. I discovered arthouse cinemas in Soho and Brixton and would go on my own to see these weird and wonderful films.

Paris, Texas was one of them and it had me transfixed, from the slow sparse cinematography, the languid performances of Harry Dean Stanton and Natassia Kinski and the unforgettable Ry Cooder soundtrack. I didn’t know you could make movies like this, where the landscape and what was not said was as much a part of the story as the dialogue.

So I was a bit intrigued to go along to a screening at the Cinema Nova, 40 years after it was made and probably 35 years since I had first seen it. I could remember aspects of the storyline and of course the mood of it but not the detail. Would it still blow me away? What would it remind me of how I saw the world when I was 24?

I can tell you now that at 24, I saw Travis‘s (Stanton) relentless search for ex-partner and mother of his child Jane (Kinski) as a grand gesture of love.

His walking the roads of Texas in his stained red cap and disintegrating shoes, rescued only by his brother Walter (Dean Stockwell) when he collapses in the middle of nowhere from dehydration. Refusing to speak, even to his brother, Travis’s single-mindedness on whatever quest he is on at the time seemed quirkily endearing. Now it feels neurodivergent, that Travis perhaps doesn’t see the world in the same way as others.

Travis eventually speaks and back in LA with Walter is reunited with the eight year old son Hunter (Hunter Carson) that he abandoned four years before. Eventually, they set out on their own road trip to find Jane, ending with the extended monologues behind glass windows and lit by red neon and harsh light that have stayed with me.

I remember feeling moved by the plight of both Jane and Travis, and seeing great love and sacrifice. Now it feels like an abusive ex stalking his partner and her being secretly a bit delighted by it. It hasn’t aged well.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised because after all the director is Wim Wenders. His stories often revolve around men, men watching women, men suffering, men making decisions. This is no different really. I wonder how my love for films like this in the 80s shaped my expectation of love and meaning.