Rain ... Tears ...

To be moved to silence, complete silence, is something phenomenal. And there, at the end of the film, a collective silence which spoke volumes, with only the hushed emotional ambience, an outpouring of breath after the intensity of this two hour moment. Vincent Ward's new film, Rain of the Children, is remarkably affective. As the director of one of the films which most endures in my mind, for over 20 years, Vigil, my expectations of him were high. And were exceeded. Ward tells the story, literally, of a tale that drifts in layers through time, of his own time, that of Puhi who is the hub of the film, and then time out of mind, another time beyond. The narration is charged with emotion, of Ward's journey in trying to explore the ineffable, in another culture, in another realm, that of the metaphysical. The ambiguous zone of mental illness and the spirit world, of the Patupairehe or 'fairies' - perhaps voices in the head, or visits from the world beyond. Evoking this moving between worlds, of curses, of prayer, and the question of what 'death' represents. Ward's voice crackles in his final line, the profundity of the journey is laid bare ...

From Rain of the Children, the round meeting house, Hiona, in the background ... built as part of the vision of the prophet Rua Kenana .. amidst the swirling mist of the Ureweras.

Hiona (Zion), c.1902