Movie Review: 'The Sound of the Wind' Paranoid Delusion or Violent Thriller?

The Sound of the Wind is a powerful exploration of mental illness even as it is a tad muddled. Written and directed by Jared Douglas, The Sound of the Wind explores the mind of a man named Lucio who may or may not be hallucinating or suffering from delusions after having taken possession of a bag of stolen money. Is Lucio being followed or is any of what is happening to him really happening?

Lucio (Christian Gnecco Quintero) was just supposed to go and get diapers for his baby daughter. Somewhere along the way, he picked up a bag full of money that belonged to some dangerous people. As he drives home, he believes someone is following him. After a frantic call to his girlfriend, Vanessa (Stephanie Rons), Lucio decides that going home is too dangerous for her and for his family.

Lucio decides to leave Los Angeles and begins driving north. When his vehicle breaks down, Lucio receives an offer of help from Chris (Dwayne Tarver), a rancher who invites Lucio to stay with him while his vehicle is out of commission. At first, Lucio is lucid and friendly. As the night goes on however, we come to wonder if Chris is also in on the conspiracy or are more of Lucio’s delusions coming to the fore.

The Sound of the Wind plays fast and loose with the idea of whether Lucio is paranoid and delusional or if he’s really being followed. Early on we watch some well-crafted scenes that appear to give credence to the reality of Lucio’s situation. Director Jared Douglas however, keeps a tight focus on Lucio throughout the movie and only having his highly faulty perception of reality keeps everything off balance.

It’s a clever piece of low budget filmmaking and it relies heavily on a lead actor to make this work. Christian Gnecco Quintero turns out to be a very solid choice. His gaunt features and especially his haunted, dark, eyes, ringed by nights of sleepless paranoia, are highly compelling. Lucio goes at least two days with barely a bite of food, no sleep and running on only paranoia and adrenaline and we feel his pain and bone deep exhaustion.

The final moments of The Sound of the Wind are the best with Lucio believing he’s being chased. Lucio takes refuge in an abandoned shack that looks like a former meth lab. He has a gun that he’s stolen and a bag of what appears to legitimately be stolen money. The film makers work very hard to use sound design to toy with us. The literal sound of the wind becomes a character in the final moments of the movie and up until the final minutes, we still don’t know what is real and what isn’t.

Admittedly, the premise of The Sound of the Wind will be exhausting for some audiences. The constant attention you must pay to attempt to decipher reality from fiction in The Sound of the Wind is unrelenting. Because Lucio never rests, we as an audience are never allowed a moment to breathe either. Every scene is built with Lucio’s haggard but unshakable conviction and restlessness.

By a similar token, some audiences may find The Sound of the Wind triggering. If you have a family member who suffers from paranoid delusions, this might not be the movie for you. This is one of the more realistic interpretations of the inner workings of the mind of someone who sees things that may not be there. Much of the run time of this 87 minute movie is Lucio on his phone to his girlfriend who we can infer has been through nights like this before.

The wearying worry of poor Vanessa will also provide trigger points for families who’ve suffered through a loved one suffering from mental illness, unaware how much they are hurting the people that they love. That said, I am not spoiling the movie here. What Lucio is going through could be very real. The character of Chris is one who appears at a convenient moment in time, acts just a little too friendly and appears to have connections with other aspects of Lucio’s delusions.

Then again, Chris might not exist either. The Sound of the Wind is a compelling intellectual mystery that uses mental illness not as a device per se, but as a road map to some very compelling human drama. It’s unquestionable that Lucio is suffering but just because he’s delusional doesn’t mean he didn’t find a big bag of money that some very bad men want returned to them.

You will need to see this tough-minded and unique movie to find out for yourself. Yes, the movie does dawdle at times and it is often a little too messy or muddled for its own good, but, for the most part, The Sound of the Wind is a compelling and strange human drama with strong direction, a great score and sound design and a highly compelling lead performance.

The Sound of the Wind is available April 24th via the virtual cinema series at the Laemmle Theater Los Angeles website. You can watch The Sound of the Wind at Laemmle.com/film/sound-wind.