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Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
The Wind (2018)

The Wind (2018)

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Released 7-Aug-2019

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Horror None
Rating Rated M
Year Of Production 2018
Running Time 84:37
RSDL / Flipper No/No Cast & Crew
Start Up Programme
Region Coding 1,2,3,4,5,6 Directed By Emma Tammi
Studio
Distributor

Umbrella Entertainment
Starring Caitlin Gerard
Julia Goldani Telles
Ashley Zukerman
Dylan McTee
Miles Anderson
Case Amaray-Opaque
RPI ? Music Ben Lovett


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 2.40:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles None Smoking Yes, a pipe
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

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Plot Synopsis

"This land is funny . . . it plays tricks on you": Emma

     Isolated in a remote cabin on the American prairie in the mid-19th century where the wind never stops, Lizzy (Caitlin Gerard) and her husband Isaac (Ashley Zukerman) welcome their new neighbours when newlywed couple, Emma (Julia Goldani Telles) and Gideon (Dylan McTee), move into an abandoned cabin nearby. But demons, which may be real or imagined, stalk the prairie and tragedy follows.

     The Wind is a stunning film, a Gothic horror tale of isolation, paranoia, madness, demons and terror by first time feature filmmakers director Emma Tammi and writer Teresa Sutherland. It starts on an unnerving note. In the darkness and howling wind a bloodstained woman walks out from a cabin with a dead baby in her arms while inside the cabin is a dead woman with half of her face shot away. This sequence is done without dialogue, and dialogue continues to be sparse throughout the film’s short 84 minute running time. Nothing is explained, and no scene is superfluous as the film remains unsettling, haunted and haunting, as it constantly, and abruptly, jumps around in times and chronology covering maybe five, six or seven different periods from months and days before the events shown at the start of the film, to days and months and afterwards as the mystery is gradually revealed. The audience is always kept off guard by the abrupt time shifts and it is unclear if what we see is real or imagined for the film is always fixed on Lizzy; we see and experience what she sees and experiences but she may not be the most reliable narrator.

     As Lizzy Caitlin Gerard is superb. I don’t think I have seen her in anything; her credits are mostly in TV and she did have a part in Insidious: The Last Key (2018), but in The Wind her performance is intense and utterly compelling to watch as she effortlessly carries the film. The Wind has only five speaking parts, and the other actors are good, but it is Gerard’s film without a doubt. The additional, non-speaking, character is the vast prairie of yellow grass waving in the constant wind amid which we see the isolated cabins, a silhouetted lone woman or a single dead tree, all beautifully framed by cinematographer Lyn Moncrief. One can fully understand that madness, or demons, might not be far away.

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Transfer Quality

Video

     The Wind is in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, PAL and 16x9 enhanced.

     Daylight scenes on the prairie with the yellow grass and vivid blue skies are clear and bright. However, much of the film occurs at night or in dark cabins where the colours are dull and muted and detail, including shadow detail, is not particularly sharp. The films was shot digitally on Alexa cameras so this may well be deliberate to create atmosphere; in other scenes the light streaming from outside the cabin through the windows also gives a softness and diffused look to the film. Close-ups are firm, skin tones natural (except for a white ghostly apparition), brightness and contrast is consistent.

     No subtitles are provided.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     Audio is English Dolby Digital 5.1 at 384 Kbps.

     The sound design is very effective. This is a film with a lot of silences when the ambient wind is the only sound. The extended silences mean that when the demonic scenes occur, with wind, flapping curtains and the house shaking, the contrast is sudden and marked. Other times the wind picks up and is evident in the rears which also deliver thunder and rain. Banging doors, footsteps and gunshots are loud and clear. The dialogue was not always easy to hear, when subtitles would have been appreciated. The subwoofer was not overly active but cut in appropriately to add depth to the demonic scenes or an ominous boom to add tension on occasion.

     The score by Ben Lovett was impressive. It utilised a bass flute and strings, including the unusual instrument the nyckelharpa, to give an eerie, yet period, feel.

    Lip synchronisation was fine.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

     Nothing. There is no menu and the programme starts when the DVD loads.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

     The Wind is to be released in Region 1 at the beginning of September. No information on it is available.

Summary

     With its jumbled, non-linear storytelling and lack of exposition The Wind may not be to everybody’s taste. But with a spot on script, impressive visuals and a mesmerising performance by Caitlin Gerard The Wind should be on your watch list if the genre, or masterly filmmaking, is of any interest. Sometimes, unexpectedly, a film will come out of nowhere and grab your attention. Right from the opening sequence, this is one of those films.

     The video is acceptable, the audio very good. Zero extras.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ray Nyland (the bio is the thing)
Thursday, September 05, 2019
Review Equipment
DVDSony BDP-S580, using HDMI output
DisplayLG 55inch HD LCD. This display device has not been calibrated. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080p.
Audio DecoderNAD T737. This audio decoder/receiver has not been calibrated.
AmplificationNAD T737
SpeakersStudio Acoustics 5.1

Other Reviews NONE