Some of the most perfect Texas desert landscapes ever filmed frame this languid, intimate story full of silences and long conversational pauses. Genius cinematographer Robby Müller gives us blue sky daytimes scorched in unreal color, flaming red dusks, and monstrous storm clouds that loom over glowing small town streets. The fetishism of American scenery is so strong here that, naturally, it was directed by a German (Wim Wenders).
Harry Dean Stanton, here in a rare lead role, is first seen mindlessly wandering the desert, looking insane. He won’t speak and when someone tries to help him, he silently accepts, but then walks off like a wind-up toy as soon as they look away. He hasn’t talked to his family in four lost, crazy years when his brother (Dean Stockwell) finds him and brings him to Los Angeles to meet the seven year old son who now barely knows him. From there, Stanton tries to fix his mistakes and repair the family that he ruined. Nastassja Kinski shows up as the boy’s mother and the long-abandoned wife who Stanton treks back across Texas to find.