Oct 15, 2017

The Wind

Saw The Wind, a 1920s silent western drama about a woman who is sent off to work for her sort-of brother (they were raised together, but they'r not related) out in some desert where it's always blowing with gale-speed winds. The wind is strong and constant, blowing sand everywhere and making (we must assume) an eerie howling noise. The protagonist lady hates this but tries to make the best of it. This is the thematic mood of the whole film: an unearthly, hostile land which is barren and harsh. Since the protagonist is female, and since this is that sort of a film, love is a vector for further harsh necessities. People do not fall in love here, so much as they are blown together and cling tight.

The film is in essentially two halves, the first spent with her friend's family (and the second... kind of a spoiler.) I think this first half is the stronger one though. The wife of the sort-of brother is played by this terrifying woman who slaughters cattle and glares at the protagonist, both contemptuous and jealous of her dainty, big-city ways and missish dislike of the sand and wind. There's some comic relief in the form of a pair of ranchers who are always after the protagonist's love, but anything can be stopped at a moment's notice by a door blowing open, or by a cyclone stirring up.

There's a couple of great, hallucinogenic dream sequences, where the wind is portrayed as a white horse, bucking and racing through the stormy sky. It's beautiful and interesting. I wasn't floored by this film, but it's definitely worth a look if you can stand silent films. The version I saw (linked above) was scored by some live band who felt the need to scream and bang drums and make mouth noises at random times. They did a good job, but sometimes I got very grumpy with them.

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