The Silent One

The Silent One is about going to the limit and winning…about being special and about people wanting to take that away.

– Director Yvonne Mackay

Leave him alone you fat fool. He's as good a hunter as you, or any of your lazy warriors.

– Luisa (Pat Evison) tells Bulai (Reg Ruka) to lay off Jonasi, before the boar hunt

The systems that are set up to handle 60 new films a year nationally do not allow for a film to be looked after in the manner we intended to look after it . . . we went to the distribution chains and told them how we'd like to see it handled. They basically agreed with us, but they couldn't do it that way.

– Gibson Group marketing director David Compton on first releasing The Silent One in Wellington via three independent cinemas, Onfilm, October 1984, page 5 (Volume 1, no 6)

...the Maidstone theatre had The Silent One scheduled for one week only. For the second week of the holidays they had booked The Lady and the Tramp. But on the Tuesday of the second week, the theatre asked for The Silent One back, as it had attracted bigger audiences than the Disney movie.

– Writer Penelope Borland on The Silent One's success in Upper Hutt, Onfilm, October 1984, page 5 (Volume 1, no 6)

[Director Yvonne] McKay displays some audacious touches for a first-time filmmaker. She uses silence in point-of-view shots for Jonasi, reflecting the hearing-impaired isolation of her lead character . . . Most remarkable are the underwater sequences involving the turtle and Jonasi. Shot by Australian diving legends Ron and Valerie Taylor, they represent some of the most intimate meldings of man and creature I have seen on film . . . The Silent One encapsulates with profound effect, the native Islander’s soulful attachment to the life-giving force of the Big Blue.

– Australian reviewer Simon Foster, SBS website, 3 July 2009

...find the white demon of the silent one . . . kill it.

– Paui Te Po (George Henare)

Twenty-five years after its release, very little about the film has aged badly . . . the overall impact is undeniable — The Silent One is a rare example of an indigenous culture being honoured onscreen with respect, emotion and insight.

– Australian reviewer Simon Foster, SBS website, 3 July 2009

Now the water dries up. What will happen next while the silent one still lives among us?

– Paui Te Po (George Henare)

It's a mean god that gets angry when a barren woman finds a son, and an orphan finds a mother. You mistrust the silent one, because he is different, but the only difference is that he does not speak. That is all. He is not a demon and he cannot frighten away the water. Water comes from rain, or from streams deep under the ground. If the rain does not fall, we will dig.

– Village chief Taruga (Rongo Tupatea Kahu) defends Jonasi

The drought is very bad. They're frightened. They have to believe in something. When the answer is not clear, the old ways [are] easiest.

– Village chief Taruga (Rongo Tupatea Kahu) on the villagers blaming Jonasi for the drought

The Silent One is a handsomely shot, intriguing, but uneven fable set on a mythical Polynesian island (actually Aitutaki Island, Rarotonga) . . . [Director Yvonne Mackay] has fashioned a visually striking picture which makes excellent use of the location, a paradise on earth.

– The reviewer for American showbusiness magazine Variety, 16 May 1984