Paris, Texas (1984)

(film 147 minutes)

Directed by: Wim Wenders
Language: English

Rating: 6/10 | Yaser Tohidi
August 14, 2022

Travis has renounced the world and knows nothing but walking day and night in deserts. This is the verdict he has pronounced for himself after leaving his wife and child some 4 years ago. Accidentally his younger brother, Walt, who has now adopted Travis’s child, Hunter, finds him. This encounter reminds Travis gradually of his past. Walt explains that Jane, Travis’s wife, could no longer care for Hunter and that is why he was left to Walt and his wife. They start traveling back to Los Angeles where Walt leaves with his wife and Hunter. On the way Travis starts speaking with the first word being Paris, a place in Texas where he has bought a land. Their mother was from there and their father wanted to believe she was actually from Paris, France, the fantasy that has become true by Walt whose wife is from Paris with strong French accent although he is not remembering all these about their parents. 

But why Travis has left - or better say has lost - his wife and his boy and wandered for years. This is not answered before Travis wins Hunter’s trust and they embark in a trip to find Jane and where Travis and Jane explain themselves to one another. Put it simply Travis was jealous and in distress seeing his joyous marriage was destroyed by Jane’s change in behaviour after having child. But now he has a more important plan. Making sure Jane’s work is safe for Hunter he tells Jane that Hunter needs her and that he is now waiting to see her. He reunite them and himself leaves and loses them again. 

Paris, Texas is the story of Travis who cannot live in a world full of desire for buying/faking nobility and excessively more ambitions and therefore losses and limitations, where placards, accents, places and names are more important than being plain and enjoying the plain life. But despite these, he has once loved Jane and they have a child together who needs more than anything else his mother. So Travis who has once caused the separation of child and mother decides to reunite them, hoping that this will make Jane happy again and will make Hunter grow by his own biological mother. Although we cannot easily answer why Travis thinks this is a better decision for Hunter as he seemed happy with Walt and his wife we can contemplate; maybe Walt reminds Travis of their father and his fake advertisements about origins of their mother (at some point we can see Walt is pasting a large advertisement of some French product) and instead he prefers Jane who is although poor but pure (she does not go home with her customers for money.)

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 Take Care (1991)

(film 93 minutes)

Directed by: Yorgos Tsemberopoulos
Language: Greek

Rating: 6/10 | Yaser Tohidi
April 09, 2022

Marina is a mother in her early 40’s. She is married to a butcher who is trying to expand his business and bring in the younger boy of the family. But the boy does not like this plan and wants to go his own way. The older boy is living overseas and is expected to visit the family soon. The only daughter is a swimmer and is getting ready for a competition though her records does not seem promising. 

Marina is trying to convince her husband not to expand but he is convinced this is their future and most be done. Not having his sons beside, he needs an apprentice with some previous skills if not a partner to share the business with. Christos is a good looking and charming islander who have just finished his military service in the kitchen of the brigade. He briefly started a not-very-promising attempt to become a singer that coincided with break-up with his girlfriend Roula. She is working in a beauty salon and Christos thinks her plans for the future are not as great as his. Christos leaves the idea of becoming a singer and wants to engage in a new business. He happens to know the butcher’s search for a business partner and starts working as an apprentice there.

Starting his job in the butchery, both Marina and her daughter find him charming and soon the daughter starts dating him although not yet publicly. Happy about the business expansion and his new apprentice but worried about his younger son, father reads in the morning news that his son is arrested for drug trafficking. Disappointed by this news he carries a heavy piece of meat to the fridge and collapses. He dies shortly after.

Marina decides to continue the business and that means working with Christos. Getting ready for the opening of the magazine’s second shop in front of the older one, she invites Christos out. The same evening Alexis, the older son, arrives. Marina picks him up and then joins Christos for their big night. Later that night they kiss. Next morning Christos refuses her love and gives back the cross with letter M engraved on it that Marina gave him last evening. She previously found this cross in the stuff of his late husband. Christos is again not sure about the girl he is looking for and the love he is refusing. He decides to leave the work. Marina, devastated by his leave, finds out from Roula that Christos is actually in a relationship with her daughter. She decides to be realistic and leaves behind the butchery to the young lovers and go for a trip oversees with his son Alexis. Marina gives the key of the piano to Christos, the piano that she played long time ago perhaps when she was still happily living with her husband and children. In the final, Christos does not use the key and leaves it on the piano.

Take care is a drama happening in the streets of Athens in 90s when the search for new ways of life peaked and therefore families and norms started to disappear. The old norms start to give place to new ones as people ask for packed meat instead of open cuts of meat. No matter how much Marina tried to keep the family together despite the problems, escalated ambitions of people around her did not let it happen. No matter how much Marina tried to keep the family happy, even by sacrificing herself and removing her presence, Christos did not accept to fall in the same circle of family and work even if he could have a house, a business and a piano to enjoy the evenings with his girlfriend. 

The new generation wants more. Marina is trying to survive in this world and falls in love with Christos, an islander looking for options and opportunities but from the new generation, thus very slippery and short-term. Take care is a sad story of beautiful Marina, a modest wife and later lover, whose happiness lasts but for only a few days. She is first empty handed in a marriage breaking up by her husband’s ambitions for expanding the work and by children’s failures. Then she finds a dim of light when she starts managing the business and falls in love with Christos. But soon he rejects her love for greater ambitions with or without her daughter. For Marina also, Christos has failed when she finds out about his relationship with her daughter. Although she still tries to survive the family by leaving overseas, Christos wants even more adventures. 

Apart from a well developing story, Take Care has nice sound tracks that adds to the profound drama of the movie.