The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 116

Ik nui i ben i nc, Paris, Texas a reprieve SESSION TIME ENQUIRIES 11 A place beyond your dreams A world beyond your imagination GEORGE ST, 267 9877 80 GROUPS (10 or mott) 267 3339 ghSsTesc BUSTERS DUNE Book now at Mitchells Bass NOTTS CENTRE 2(7 9177 Today: 1 -30, 4:45, 7:50. A FULL SCALE MILITARY INVASION BY FOREIGN TROOPS RED made about the barriers that distance people from one another. I found the much-discussed scenes where Travis and his wife finally communicate a bit of a worry. All very neat intellectually I guess but the device of the Texas peep show, where they can talk but not touch and a two way mirror allows only one-way vision, seemed a rather heavy-handed metaphor. Still, there's a great deal here to think about, which is not a bad outcome.

And if I didn't find it particularly moving more a matter for the head than the heart then that's still way in advance of the vast majority of recent movies that seem to want only to engage your eyeballs. Paris, Texas is an interesting movie and well worth a look. unwilling. From his brother (Dean Stockwell) we learn that the man Travis and his wife disappeared four years ago, leaving their child with him. Where they went-and what happened to him remains a mystery and seems to have given up communicating, isn't telling.

The answers filter through slowly as. the film charts his tentative moves back to speech, and society, and finally to the realisation that he must find his wife (Nastassja Kinski) and confront the trauma that launched his silence odyssey. All this is observed in quiet, subtle scenes that play a lot as if they've been adlibbed, with the wild-eyed Harry Dean Stanton (in his first ever lead role) providing a very watchable -focus, and some telling points I HQTTS CENTNE 2S7 9977 I Today: 1:15,3:45,6:15, aria pm. i ooay 2 pm. II 1HE highly-acclaimed It Par, Texas has JLL4: lobbed into an unlikely spot for its Sydney sestspn, amidst the blare and bustle -on cinema strip, between pinbaM-parlours running hot and queues jostling for junk food and junk movies.

Still, a quiet thoughtful movie like this will provide a welcome respite for those aweary of the holidaying hordes and still able to handle a movie with no special effects without suffering withdrawal symptoms. It's 4n unusual movie. But by no means as odd or difficult or just, plain infuriating as has sometimes been suffered at the bands, of its director, Wim Wenders. (I remember years ago having a cranky wrestle with his tricksy early movie The Fear Of The Goalie At -The Penally and failing utterly to discover its' meaning.) This time Wenders is very clear what he has to PARIS. TEXAS (NRC).

Directed by Wim Wenders. Starring Harry Dean Stanton, Nastaasja Kinski. Roma And there's the advantage of having writer-actor Sam She-perd to supply the spare, strong dialogue the original idea having sprung from his Motel Chronicles, fragmented memories of being on the road in the US of A. Wenders, a German director, has been getting to know America. And his recurring theme of alienation and anxiety settle quite nicely into the landscape of teeming freeways and sprawling automated cities, fly-specked desert towns and bleary neon-lit motels.

The film opens with a dishevelled figure alone in the desert, hurrying along on the way to nowhere. He stumbles into' town and collapses. And -when a seedy medico brings him round, it seems he is unable to talk. Or I WmncH Milt TWIN 931 MM Today: 7:45 pm. I fiitmii eoumtwin7i7ii I Today: 1:30, 8:00 pm.

ALBY MANGELS NEW ADVENTURE I HQTTS CENTRE 2t7 9177 Today: 1:30,4:15, 7:30. I ton mmun tn mm 1 5:30 pm. WMBINMB IUU TWIN 911 4IM I Today: pm. lfllii IfjRCl Karate Kid rmcmrs77r TaWTTl5S6a57 1 -tA, WIS 0 ar. Wh ala a nTS Harry Dean Stanton, left, is the silent man who wanders into Paris, Texas and Nastassja Kinski.

above, is the wife he must find. DUNE (NRC). Directed by David Lynch. Starring Kyle MacLachlan, Sian Phillips. Hoyts OST of the time in Dune is spent boggling at toe special effects, which are, as promised, undoubtedly spectacu- Iw.f Book now at Mitchell's Bass I NOTTS CENTRE 2(7 9177 Today: 1:30, 3:45.

6:00, pm. I oxt rimmni as tn Today: 2:00. 5:00. 8:00. I wuniNciM mil twin at wit Today: 2:00.5:00.8:00.

0N0i luNCT.nm tn stn Today: 2:00. 5:00.8:00. I flltfltH fOttlM TWIN 176 1711 Today: 1:00,4:30,8:00, a THE Book now at Mitchells Bass I NOTTS CENT9E 2(7 9177 I Today: 1:00,3:30, pm. ion ruiuum as kss I Today: 5:30,8:15 pm. I NOTTS CENTRE 2(7 9177 I Today: 1:30,6:00.8:10.

I NOTTS CENTt 117 9177 I Today: 3:30, 8:00 pm. Sat 11.1. w-Sun 1, 3 MonTuewrtVbd 11. 1.3 mmk i provide the only merriment in a saga that is generally very po-faced indeed.) Dune's special effects are undeniably four-star material. But, irreverent as it may seem, with such a proliferation of exotic creatures milling about, it struck me that the film was like nothing so much as a zapped up episode of Dr Who, with a special effects budget beyond the Doctor's wildest imaginings.

Tl additional bonus of all this technical wizardry is that -it takes one's mind off a small problem. Which for me, at any rate, was working out just who (or what) the characters were, and what the hell they were np to. I law net read Frank Herbert's science fiction novel. I do know it is fat, and presumably if yon had all that detail oa boardy the events would be more explicable. Af it, the fiha represents a triumph of special effects over; subject nutter.

There seems to have been a concentration of effort on the bits that lend themselves to the most eye-boggling visual effects, with a tendency to -let the accompanying explanations go hang. At several points, I was utterly mystified as to what was happeaiag, thongh I did suspect it was not frightfully deep and meaningful. From what I had beard, I rather expected the saga to be invested with some sort of mythic overtones. But what came ever, through the dazzle of special effects, had abont as much resonance as a message in a Christmas cracker. Which, come to think of it, isa't such a bad metaphor for the movie.

For non-readers of Dune, a basic goodies versus baddies storyline does emerge though Dune fanciers will no doubt blanch at such surface skittering of their multi-layered novel. In tite universe of the future, ownership of the planet Arrakis is in dispute, Arrakis being the source of a spice which "provides the power to navigate the universe (I think). Ia the goodies comer are an aristocratic bead called the Atreides, led by a rather pious young person, the Dnke-ekct, Paul Atreides. Ranged against them are the Harkomens, a vilely decadent and literally suppurating lot whose diseased bodies personify their dread intent. antics of the fairly disgusting Harkonnens r' nrri i(i 1 jwNjW" hmt ii ir i -p Jurgen Prochnow and Sting in Dun.

PS DaitvCBOSaja Also Sun 3304 Wed Daily att. Also Sun 2 00 Wed 11.15OT.(M)(Noe30Session1oiKgm) 11 'jaw i mm wi ujjuam.iuf LsstS Dml Oaityal5.15.(lealureOnly)(NRC) LAST 4 DAYS PBKISJ If? I Doily 2.30,5.30,8.15pm feature occupies entire profgamrne NOW SHOWING VIU-ABE IWaCT 267.6471-246 PITT ST IROMA mwiMnii Martin Place Cinema 233 8166 121 THE SUN-HERALD, Dec 16, 1984 121.