Vento e Areia

An awesome, dark & atmospheric film. Gish is superb as the fragile Letty driven to the brink of madness by the incessant wind whipping up the sand. Her portrayal, with her wide staring eyes & tensing hands as the madness threatens to overwhelm her is stunning. The film takes its time to establish its characters, with a constant backdrop of the menace of the environment & also the danger of violence & the descent into madness, building to a thundering & almost unbearably tense experience with the actual sand storm itself. A true classic of the silent era capturing a performer at the peak of her powers-the image of Letty staring wide eyed through the window as the sand uncovers the body will stay with you.

Peculiar, but brilliantly filmed silent classic starring Gish as a young woman who battles for her life as she lives in the windy Texas desert, and is torn between two men who want her. Special effects are quite breathtaking for its time and since it was filmed in the scorching Mojave Desert in California.

Lillian Gish's legendary career was nearly as lengthy as her life. Time and time again, she has shown audiences that she was truly one of the finest actresses who ever lived. A perfect example of her power and artistry is in "The Wind".

Miss Gish plays "Letty", a young girl from Virginia who moves to her cousin's house on the wild, open plains of Texas. The plot is very interesting and very fluid. Miss Gish is wonderful as usual (the sequence of events at the end of the movie is among the finest performances on film) but the real star of the movie is Swedish heartthrob Lars Hanson. A real delightful performance, with real charisma.

A must-see film that deserves more recognition.

What struck me most about this film is how it achieved by purely visual means to evoke the threatening nature of the environment in which the female lead (Letty Mason, played by Lillian Gish) finds herself. The way the wind drives the sand and pushes against windows and doors and the very walls of the cabin makes it look and feel truly frightening. Lillian Gish is fantastic as an initially weak young woman who arrives in this environment as a total stranger, is hated by a woman on whom she depends and deceived by a man who (seemingly) offers to marry her, but who nevertheless finds inner strength in the end. 'The Wind' is a truly haunting film with an optimistic ending. Highly recommended!

Really awesome silent film about a young woman who finds herself at the mercy of people who use and abuse her. With no way to get home, stranded in the mojave desert, Lillian Gish has maybe her best role. The special affects are astounding. The ending is very poor, however. Lillian Gish herself talks about how they insisted a sad ending would ruin her career, even though her films all had sad endings in the past and she was a huge star! She herself, hated the ending they made. Just ignore it and think about how great the whole rest of the film is!